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New Athlon XP 2400+ / 2600+ Information |
7/31/2002 |
From AMDMB.com:
"Well guys, this is some big news I'd like to share with everyone. After some phone calls to and from various sources inside the AMD underbelly.
I have news of the next Athlon XP processors to be released as the 2400+ and and 2600+ to combat the on going competition from Intel. While simple speed increases are not big news for a processor, there is more to this than meets the eye. Even before the introduction of the Athlon XP 2200+ processor, AMD knew they were having a small problem with the .13 micron cores and thus a second revision of the Thoroughbred core was put underway. This new revision, while not officially announced (and it may not be) is under going some testing with great results. The 2400+ processor is set to run at 2.0 GHz and the 2600+ processor is looking to be at 2.13 Ghz. As Intel has plans of releasing a 3.0 Ghz processor towards the end of this year, this kind of speed boost from AMD is desperately needed -- perhaps even more.
As if things couldn't get better, along with this news comes an update on the fabled 333 MHz FSB Athlons. I was told that the AMD labs are really looking into this and testing it out with the newer "rev 2" cores of the Thoroughbred. While AMD could take the current 266 MHz FSB up to the 2.13 GHz range, moving beyond that would be very tricky and I have it on good authority that AMD has a lot more life in the Thoroughbred than many are expecting. What does that mean? I think we are going to see the 333 MHz FSB processors and fairly soon. The inside tip also explained that a decision by the AMD authorities on whether or not to use the 333 MHz FSB will be finalized within the next three weeks.
While nothing was mentioned of the Barton core, we have two options as to its whereabouts. Either this "rev 2" is the Barton and the info about the extra cache was left out, or Barton will follow this "rev 2" Thoroughbred." |
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Microsoft releases W2K Service Pack 3 |
7/31/2002 |
"A collection of bug fixes for Windows 2000 is now available for download on the Microsoft site.
Service Pack 3 features some fixes to security but the major item of interest will be a piece of software that gives end users the option to select default programs on machines.
That control is there because of the antitrust settlement proposal between the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Microsoft, and allows end users to select which programs to choose between as defaults, Microsoft ones or not.
Prepare to jam your modem line, if that's how you're preparing to download it – the size of the file is over 120MB."
Download Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP3) Here:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/win2000platform/SP/SP3/NT5/EN-US/w2ksp3.exe
Inquirer Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4703
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Europeans Prepare for First Mission to the Moon |
7/31/2002 |
We've visited it in person. We've studied it with robots in orbit. We've even crashed into it on purpose to try and kick up something interesting. Yet our nearest celestial neighbor the Moon still holds mysteries.
Exactly how the Moon evolved, and thus how the Earth came to be, is not fully understood. And scientist suspect -- but are not certain -- that the Moon harbors water ice at its south pole, something that could determine whether colonies are ever established there.
In response to the dearth of data, several upcoming missions are being planned. The first spacecraft to visit the Moon after a four-year-drought will be SMART-1, the European Space Agency's maiden voyage to Earth's only natural satellite.
Full Article:
http://space.com/scienceastronomy/smart_science_020730.html |
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Microsoft Shifts Licensing Plan |
7/31/2002 |
"Microsoft Corp. is about to complete the biggest change in five years in the way that it sells its software to businesses with a system of locked-in upgrades and fixed payments that promises steadier revenue but has also rankled some smaller customers.
By Wednesday, the world's No. 1 software maker will have fully implemented the change in the way business customers pay for the right to use the latest versions of its software.
Chief Executive Steve Ballmer admitted that the shift in Microsoft's complex volume licensing practices, which it introduced five years ago, had sown some confusion.
"The fact that our customers probably didn't understand our licensing as well they might have earlier makes the transition and the perceived pain higher than it actually is," he told analysts at the company's Redmond, Washington headquarters last week. "So we're smarter for the experience, that's for sure."
Microsoft hopes to stabilize its income through multi-year contracts that promise to deliver regular updates through the new "Software Assurance" program."
Full Article:
http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=adfqa |
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Nvidia Says Revenue to Miss Expectations |
7/31/2002 |
Graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp. on Tuesday warned that revenue for its just-completed second quarter would fall short of expectations because of weakness in demand for personal computers.
Nvidia shares plunged in after-hours trade on the news, falling 24 percent to $12.35 on Instinet from a close of $16.22 on Nasdaq.
Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia said it expected to report revenue of $410 million to $430 million for the quarter ended July 28, below the average Wall Street expectation of $567.9 million as tracked by research firm Thomson First Call.
Nvidia in late May had said it expected its second-quarter revenue to be up 1 percent to 3 percent from the $582.9 million it reported in the first fiscal quarter. The new revenue forecast was as much as 32 percent lower than the prior view.
Full Article:
http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=QSNOSFHRV1CZICRBAE3CFEY |
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Scam sweep targets 19 online fraudsters |
7/31/2002 |
"Federal and state law enforcement authorities said Tuesday they had taken action against 19 Internet-based scams that they say collectively bilked consumers out of millions of dollars.
Work-at home schemes, auction fraud, deceptive use of junk e-mail, securities fraud and other schemes were targeted by a broad Internet law-enforcement effort including state attorneys general, local law enforcement authorities and a passel of federal agencies.
Several cases have been settled already, with punishments ranging from from seven-year jail sentences to agreements by defendants to stop their schemes.
While many of the perpetrators live in the Midwest, the crimes targeted consumers nationwide through junk e-mail solicitations or fraud on eBay, Yahoo! and other popular Internet auction sites, according to a spokeswoman for the Federal Trade Commission.
In one case, a Florida company named Stuffingforcash.com told consumers they could earn up to $2,000 per week stuffing envelopes at home after paying an initial $45 deposit, but then failed to send the promised envelope-stuffing materials.
The scheme likely cheated tens of thousands of customers out of more than $2 million over the past year, the FTC said in court filings.
Auction fraud was a common charge. In a typical case, the Illinois attorney general charged Chicago resident Tim Engle with advertising merchandise for sale on eBay but failing to provide the goods after payment was received."
Full Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/07/30/scams.reut/index.html |
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NASA Scientists Call British Media's Asteroid Hype Unethical Rubbish |
7/30/2002 |
"A small asteroid threat hyped to gloom-and-doom proportions by British media last week has left several U.S. scientists frustrated and fuming over what they call misleading and unethical stories that frightened readers unnecessarily. Meanwhile, a British reporter defends the stories, a British astronomer wonders what all the fuss is about and another suggests American scientists are too complacent about the danger.
The whole affair, over an asteroid that is almost certainly harmless, illustrates the stylistic ocean that separates American and British media and scientists' tactics in dealing with them.
Asteroid 2002 NT7 was discovered July 9 and last week was determined by NASA to have six chances in a million of hitting Earth on Feb. 1, 2019. Using a different analysis method, European analysts gave the odds at 16-in-a-million. Both groups posted data about the asteroid's possible path, margins of error and odds of impact on web sites intended primarily for other scientists but also available to journalists and the public.
At least three online British news outlets reported on Wednesday that the asteroid was on a collision course with Earth. Several leading British newspapers -- including The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, The Independent -- followed on Thursday with similar stories topped by impending catastrophe.
In a few cases the headlines and story leads were flat wrong, several American scientists complain."
Full Article:
http://space.com/scienceastronomy/asteroid_scare_020729-1.html |
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New Way To Grade Decay of Computer Installations |
7/30/2002 |
"Verity Stob has developed a new tool that will help you make rapid diagnoses of sick PCs. A rolling computer gathers "cruft." When you spot a class interface that is no longer used by any client, but that nobody dare delete, that's cruft. It is also the word "seperate," added to a spellchecker's private dictionary in a moment of careless haste, and now waiting for a suitably important document. Cruft is the cruel corruption and confusion inevitably wrought by time upon all petty efforts of humankind. There.
At Laboratoires Stob, we have been working on the cruft crisis for a while. Recalling the maxim "to control a problem you must first measure it," we have devised a suitable metric, an index of cruftidity. Our first version, presented below, is based on a typical PC installation running Windows 2000. But there will shortly be ports to Linux, Mac OS X, and other Unices; we are confident these OSes are just as prone.
We would like to acknowledge our debt, in the construction of this instrument, to Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort. His 1805 scale of windspeeds ("Insurance Claim Force 8. Description on land: Tile blown off roof falls onto litigious neighbour's Toyota Shiny") is as valid and useful today as it ever was. Enough preamble.
Cruft Force 0. Virgin. Description: The "Connect to the Internet" shortcut is still on the desktop, and the "How to use Windows" dialog appears at logon. Menu animations and the various event-based sound effects — even the dreaded Microsoft Sound — seem cheerful and amusing. Likewise, a clandestine installation of the Blue Screen Of Death screensaver (complete with simulated reboot, natch) from the Sysinternals web site is hilarious. Compilers run crisply, and report only sensible, easily resolved errors. There are just nine directories off C:\."
Full Article:
http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=7453/ddj0208q/0208q.htm |
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HP Announces New Photo Printers / Digital Cameras |
7/30/2002 |
"Computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. on Monday announced new photo printers that it said produce better looking prints than a traditional photo lab.
HP also rolled out three digital cameras that can be configured to alert friends and family automatically by e-mail about new photos and store the pictures temporarily on an HP Web site.
The system, dubbed Instant Share, has been available since May on a $500 HP camera, but HP says it needed to offer the service at a lower price point for it to catch on big. The new cameras with the system, models 320, 620 and 720, start at $179."
Full Article:
http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=technologynews&StoryID=1263784
HP Website:
http://www.hp.com
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Linus Torvalds prays Intel will adopt Yamhill |
7/30/2002 |
"A posting by Linus Torvalds on the LINUX KERNEL newsgroup yesterday has him praying that Intel will adopt its secret "Yamhill" project and turn to the ways of X86-64 righteousness.
Torvalds, who had a key part to play in Transmeta's fortunes at startup, says in the post that Linux developers are "generally praying that AMD's X86-64 succeeds in the market."
That, he says, would force Intel to make Yamhill its standard 64-bit platform and allow for improvements in the Linux kernel.
But Torvalds reckons that making everything truly 64-bit might well be years away."
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4668 |
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Crucial Gets Into Video Card Business |
7/30/2002 |
"Since the R9000 has already been launched and is supposed to take the place of the 8500/LE, how long will Crucial produce this card?
The length of time we'll sell this and any product is dependant on the market. Right now, the Crucial Radeon 8500LE is an excellent and economical option for anyone looking to improve their graphics capability.
Is the Crucial VidCard made in the USA?
The Micron DDR memory used in our Crucial Radeon 8500LE video card is manufactured in the USA. But the video card itself is assembled in Hong Kong.
Astute [H]'er, Robin Schwartz, pointed out that the Crucial driver downloads page points to Sapphire Tech in Hong Kong, apparently the folks building the card.
How much will it retail for?
Currently, the Crucial Radeon 8500LE is available for $134.99 through Crucial.com and it comes with free shipping in the contiguous US.
Will the 9000 chipset follow closely?
We'll consider offering other video card options in the future. Whether we do depends on what our customers want and need.
Where will is sell through?
As with all our products, any new Crucial video cards would be available direct through our Web site at Crucial.com. We would also expect to offer new products through our European Web site at Crucial.com/UK. In fact, the Crucial Radeon 8500LE should be available through the UK site shortly"
Full Article:
http://www.hardocp.com/ |
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Court orders ICANN to open books |
7/30/2002 |
A California judge has ordered the Internet's governing body to open its books for inspection.
A state judge in Los Angeles on Monday lifted the veil of secrecy that has surrounded many of the group's internal deliberations for the last four years, dealing an embarrassing setback to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
During the 90-minute hearing, Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs said that ICANN board members could not be denied their right under California law to review financial records, travel logs, legal contracts and other internal documents. ICANN has a contract with the U.S. government to oversee key Internet functions, most notably approving new top-level domain names such as .info and .biz.
ICANN board member Karl Auerbach, a veteran Internet engineer now working at a start-up, sued the organization in March after being rebuffed in his request to review records, first made in November 2000.
Janavs pointed to California law, which says that board members at nonprofit groups such as ICANN have "the absolute right at any reasonable time to inspect and copy all books, records and documents of every kind."
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-947085.html?tag=fd_top |
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RIAA Web site disabled by attack |
7/30/2002 |
The Recording Industry Association of America's Web site was unreachable over the weekend due to a denial-of-service attack.
The apparently deliberate overload rendered the RIAA.org site unavailable for portions of four days and came after the group endorsed legislation to allow copyright holders to disrupt peer-to-peer networks.
The malicious flood started on Friday and did not involve any intrusion into the RIAA's internal network, a representative for the trade association said on Monday afternoon. Nobody has claimed credit for the denial-of-service attack, which ended at 2 a.m. PDT on Monday.
"Don't they have something better to do during the summer than hack our site?" asked the RIAA representative, who asked not to be identified. "Perhaps it at least took 10 minutes away from stealing music."
RIAA representatives then went back to finely tuning their kiddie scripts to start their mass "hacking" of music stealers once they have paid off their proposed legislation makes it through (which will be NEVER).
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-947072.html?tag=fd_top |
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Malaysia Says Piracy (Might Be) OK for Learning |
7/29/2002 |
mkbz writes "a Malaysian newspaper published a story quoting Malaysia's Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, who condemned the use of pirated software for business, but also said they may turn a blind eye to piracy when it comes to education: "But for educational purposes and to encourage computer usage, we may consider allowing schools and social organisations to use pirated software." is learning more important than copyright enforcement? could each of the pirated works found in schools be written off as donations? how can this benefit both the people AND the software makers? Read the full article here."
Full Slashdot Posting:
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/07/28/1723228.shtml?tid=99 |
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HardOCP offers their Headlines... for now. |
7/29/2002 |
From HardOCP.com "I know some of you guys have been asking for an RDF file in order to serve our headlines on your own page and we are going to experiment with it for a while and see how it goes. While this might not always be a service we want to give away for free forever, that is how it is going to start out. If you are interested, the file is located at http://www.hardocp.com/hardocp.rdf and if you utilize the headlines we would like you to drop us a link so we can check it out and see how it is working for you. Thanks!"
Original Article:
http://www.hardocp.com |
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AGP4X vs. AGP8X |
7/29/2002 |
"Compared to the TNT days where there was virtually no difference with AGP 2X and AGP4X, what we have here today is pretty encouraging. Although the performance gained with AGP8X is up to only about 4.7%, we don't believe it is going to stop there. There are still a lot of fine tuning that needs to be done at the chipset level since what we have tested here were based on engineering samples. Moreover, the AGP specification is still not yet finalized and it's in the final draft right now. It's probable that what we saw today will be about 90%-95% of what will result after the standard goes final.
The new AGP8X transfer protocol is expected to benefit future graphic cores with its wide 533MT/s (MT/s = million transfers per second) bandwidth which equates to about 2.1GB/s. Current graphics cards which take the advantage of AGP8X includes the SiS Xabre200/400 and the recently announced RADEON 9000/9700. The Matrox Parhelia although carried an AGP8X specification during the technology briefing was sadly released as an AGP4X part. We have not heard anything from NVIDIA but we do know GeForce5 (if that's what they're going to call it) would be AGP8X compliant."
Full Article:
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/articles.hwz?cid=3&aid=473 |
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Sun to push StarOffice for Apple's OS X |
7/29/2002 |
Apple Computer and Sun Microsystems are cooperating on a version of Sun's StarOffice productivity software for Mac OS X, the companies said.
Sun has been looking for hardware allies in its long-running quest to popularize StarOffice, which competes against Microsoft Office. To date, no major PC makers have pledged to heavily promote StarOffice.
Apple also gains a friend to help counter its increasingly contentious relationship with Microsoft, which has been struggling with sales of its Office v. X suite for Macintosh. Microsoft expected to sell 750,000 copies of the software; since its release last November, only 300,000 copies of Mac Office have sold.
The partnership is expected to produce a Java-based version of OpenOffice by the end of the year, followed by a commercial StarOffice release sometime in 2003.
"I think you can see OpenOffice running solid on OS X by the end of this calendar year," said Tony Siress, Sun's senior director of desktop marketing solutions.
Until now, Sun did not plan a version of StarOffice for OS X, although the Microsoft Office competitor is available for Linux, Solaris and Windows. An open-source version of the software, called OpenOffice, had already been planned for OS X. OpenOffice.org released a developer build of the product on Thursday.
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-946714.html?tag=fd_top |
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Microsoft Pressures Poorer Countries Instead of Offering Aid |
7/29/2002 |
"In developing some countries the price of software can be prohibitive. But rather than lower its prices locally to promote legal use, Microsoft, for example, prefers to send in snatch squads to catch and prosecute users of pirate software.
The squads have been out in force in Peru, we hear, particularly since the government there said it was considering going the open source route.
Microsoft pressure on Peru has been considerable and Wired has a story here that the company enlisted the help of US Ambassador to the country, John Hamilton, to help dissuade the upstart Peruvians from adopting an open source option."
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4661
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Qwest Says Used Improper Accounting in 1999-2001 |
7/29/2002 |
Qwest Communications International Inc., already under federal investigation for its accounting practices, said on Sunday it would restate its financial results because it improperly booked $1.16 billion in sales and other items in 1999 to 2001.
Qwest, the dominant local telephone company in 14 states from Minnesota to Washington, also withdrew its financial forecasts for 2002, which called for it to report up to $18.4 billion in revenues. It said all areas of its business have been hurt by slack demand, stiff competition and softness in regional economy.
"I've heard people predict we're hitting the bottom for the past few quarters and there's been a lot of errors. When I look at the general economy, I don't feel confident making any predictions about recovery (in the telecom sector)," said Qwest's new chairman Dick Notebaert.
Full Article:
http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=technologynews&StoryID=1261010 |
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FBI's computer systems absolutely crap |
7/28/2002 |
"A report in today's LA Times said that the Federal Bureau Investigation's (FBI's) computer systems were feeble well before last year's terrorist attacks and continue to be weak because of underinvestment and dodgy accounting tricks.
The newspaper also has got hold of a memo former attorney general Janet Reno wrote its director in May 2000 laying into the bureau's inability to use IT to track terrorist threats.
The paper, in the first of a two part investigation, describes the FBI as being in a state of "technological lethargy" because of institutional arrogance, bad prioritising, and poor relations with politicians in Washington.
It quotes one old hand saying "real men don't type" and only need a pen, a notebook and a gun.
In this, the FBI appear to agree with Intel's CEO Craig Barrett, who said earlier this year that terrorism is a low tech problem that guns are likely to solve better than Pentium 4 CPUs and Stinkpads."
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4654 |
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Foris selling Sony Vaios for £76 |
7/28/2002 |
UPDATE/DOWNDATE Sunday 09:50 BST Looks like someone at Foris woke up and has downed its remarkably cheap offer on Vaois. It also had Omnibooks on sale but those pages are down too. There will no doubt be some following up to do on this later this week. The legal position on people who have "bought" machines at this price is somewhat ambiguous. While Kodak did eventually honour orders, this was only after a prolonged campaign by the UK TV and press, following up on our story.
But our own Consumers Association told us that the position was far from clear and that it was possible for vendors to argue that mistakes made on Web sites didn't mean that people buying kit would necessarily be entitled to buy products at the advertised prices.
The Kodak camera offer was also complicated by the fact that the original web offer came with a "special offer" tag, which might reasonably cause buyers to think the advertised price wasn't a mistake.
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4652 |
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ATI Launched Fire GL X1 |
7/28/2002 |
"As we have expected, a bit later after the announcement of RADEON 9700 graphics chip (see this news story) intended for the gaming desktop market, ATI pushed it to the professional market as well. And they did it in a very unusual way I should say. Instead of announcing RADEON 9700 under a new name (with Fire GL part in it) the company… launched a "professional Fire GL X1 graphics card based on RADEON 9700 chip". In other words, they no longer conceal that there are the same chips used in desktop and professional cards, which made a very positive impression on me at least (now NVIDIA should do something like that :)
The differences between the professional Fire GL X1 and the desktop RADEON 9700 based graphics cards are pretty standard: more memory onboard (256MB against 128MB) and special drivers for professional applications. Also Fire GL X1 is likely to work at higher frequencies, but they never reported them, which is a disappointment. The cards are expected to start shipping in October this year (RADEON 9700 based gaming cards are scheduled for August). Then things should get clear finally, I mean the frequencies and the expected retail pricing."
Original Article:
http://xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1027761262 |
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AMD cuts prices on Athlon, Duron |
7/28/2002 |
"Advanced Micro Devices cut prices Friday on its Athlon XP and Duron processors for both desktop and notebook PCs.
The chipmaker shaved up to 20 percent off prices for Athlon XP chips in an effort to make AMD-based PCs more attractive to buyers, a company representative said. AMD's last price cut was in late May.
Price cuts on desktop chips ranged from a 20 percent cut on the Athlon XP 2100+, which went from $224 to $180, to a 5 percent cut on the Athlon XP 2200+, which dropped from $241 to $230.
AMD also lowered the price on its Athlon XP 2000+ by 16 percent, from $193 to $163. The Athlon XP 1900+ chip fell 13 percent, from $172 to $150; the Athlon XP 1800+ dropped 11 percent, from $160 to $142; and the price of the Athlon XP 1700+ was shaved 7 percent, from $140 to $130. AMD's Athlon XP 1600+ desktop chip stayed at $130."
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-946704.html?tag=fd_top |
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New Parhelia Driver |
7/28/2002 |
File Name: Release Date: Version: Size:
2kxp_100_04.exe July 26, 2002 1.00.04.231 5.66 MB
Notes and known issues:
- This is a fully supported driver release for Matrox Parhelia 128 MB boards.
- General bug fixes including DVI issue and problem with Neverwinter Nights.
- Please uninstall your current drivers using Microsoft Add/Remove Programs before installing the new drivers.
Full Article:
http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/files/2kxp_100_04.cfm |
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Radeon 9000/Pro Based Graphics Cards Went Mass! |
7/27/2002 |
ATI made an official press-release where they announced that all its AIB partners started shipping graphics cards based on RADEON 9000 Pro chip, and some of them also started shipping RADEON 9000. The list of companies partnering with ATI on that now includes: Connect3D, CP Technology Co., Ltd., First International Computer, Inc., Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd., Hercules Guillemot, Hightech Information System Ltd., Jetway Information Co., Ltd., Joytech Computer Co., Ltd., Sapphire Technology Ltd., Super Grace Electronics Ltd., Unitech Electronics Co., Ltd and Wistron Corporation.
ATI Company, as we know, announced the beginning of RADEON 9000 Pro based cards shipments together with the chipset announcement (the recommended retail price is only $149). Now we look forward to seeing them in stores!
Full Article:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1027751585 |
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Power Mac Leak Provokes Apple Legal |
7/27/2002 |
In its latest skirmish with independent Web sites bearing unauthorized information about the Mac, Apple Computer Inc. this week moved to block the posting of images that purportedly portray a long-awaited upgrade to its professional Power Mac systems.
On Sunday, French Mac enthusiast site MacBidouille ("Mac Do-It-Yourself") published images and diagrams purporting to be prototypes of the future pro tower, which missed the boat for last week's Macworld Expo in New York.
Independent sources report that the new towers, which are expected to clock in at speeds faster than 1.2GHz and sport a revamped motherboard, will be unveiled in August. The current Power Macs, which debuted in late January, top out at 1GHz and are based on an older design.
MacBidouille's postings included photographs allegedly showing the new G4's internals, as well as a diagram and a shot of the front of a prototype casing. The new tower's chassis resembles the "El Capitan" casing that has been the mainstay of Apple's pro lineup since 1999, although the layout has been changed. The photos show the speaker near the top of the case, with a glossed aluminum panel for the optical drives in the middle, and air intakes near the bottom.
Full Article:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,415482,00.asp |
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AMD starts designing K9 architecture, seeks staff |
7/27/2002 |
"The K8 Hammer isn't out yet but AMD has started recruiting engineers for its next generation microprocessor, the K9, we can reveal.
And Newisys – which we revealed was close to AMD's Opteron design plans earlier this year – is also advertising a number of vacancies for what can only be Opteron designs.
The K9 jobs, all at Austin, are for analogue circuit design engineers, Circuit Design Engineers, and a digital circuit design engineer.
The last advertises for a senior level engineer to support custom circuit design for the K9 and its derivatives, and the successful application will work on microarchitecture definition, circuit specs, schematic entries, layouts, functional verification and a raf of other jobs."
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4651 |
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Latest AMD price changes continue grey farce |
7/27/2002 |
"Why is any of this important? End users might get their chips far cheaper, but selling products not only alienates distributors and integrators who might be thrown into its competitors' arms, but also erodes pricing, and therefore the margins AMD could expect to make.
Lower margins mean less profits. Less profits mean less R&D, shareholder angst, and less money to spend on distributors, marketing, and advertising. A vicious circle indeed.
Despite repeated requests from the INQUIRER for AMD to explain its pricing policy, the firm appears to have once more become unconcerned about its offfcial lines of distribution, which it was notorious for before it started addressing these problems four or five years ago."
Read the Full Article to Understand What Mike is talking about:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4649 |
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SIS unveils future Xabre dance |
7/26/2002 |
"While ATi and nVIDIA bind journalists to blood curdling oaths of secrecy over NV30, NV40 and NV-whatever, it appears that plucky Silicon Integrated Systems (SIS) has no compunction about revealing its future Xabre graphics plans.
That's evident from a Powerpointillism chart available on its Web site which tells us all about Xabre II, which will support Direct X9.0 and AGP 8X and wil sample in February of next year.
SIS appears to want to do with the graphics market what it's doing with the RDRAM chipset and mop up business that perhaps ATI and Nvidia might miss.
It's certainly true to say that graphics card manufacturers we met at Computex earlier this year fear Nvidia, for some absurd reason. What could be more cuddly than Graphiczilla?
One or two manufacturers confessed to us that they hoped SIS did very well and that in any case they preferred to do business with local firms.
Whether it's supposed to be secret squirrel stuff or not, it makes for quite interesting viewing, particularly on the AGP 8X front."
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Full Article
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4628 |
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Windows to support "three to five" 64 bit implementations |
7/26/2002 |
Winsupersite has a super cite from Brian Valentine, the Senior Vice President of Microsoft's Windows Division. In a discussion of Longhorn, the next version of Windows NT/XP/2000, he reveals that it intends to support Intel's Titanic, AMD's Opteron, plus one to three other high volume 64 bit CPUs.
We're somewhat at a loss as to what these "high volume 64 bit platforms" could be. Microsoft is obviously at pains, to distance itself from the early-90s Windows support for MIPS and PowerPC, now almost forgotten except by the few poor souls who actually used it before it was discontinued, or, God forbid, even based their IT strategy on it.
Indeed, even the more recent Alpha support is unlikely to provide a model for MS's newfound love of hardware diversity. After dragging the Alpha version along half-heartedly for years, never quite managing to get the entire Office suite ported, it dropped it after a spat with DECpaq about who should be paying.
The statement appears to represent quite an about-face from the company that once told AMD, Cyrix and Rise: Agree on a multimedia instruction set (3DNow!) or face a boycott from the 500lb übervole of software. So what has changed? MS can't be expecting ISVs to produce its software in three to five different 64 bit versions, so if MS really intends to support any high volume 64 bit platform this indicates it feels confident that, with the help of its .NET technology, it can free themselves (and the ISVs) from the constraints of CPU instruction sets.
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Full Article
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4639 |
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GRACE the Autonomous Robot |
7/26/2002 |
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A group of scientists who set out to build a robot with human social skills may have actually improved on humanity: Their creation courteously steps aside for people, smiles during conversation and politely asks directions.
The 6-foot robot, named GRACE, for Graduate Robot Attending Conference, will wander a symposium on artificial intelligence that begins this weekend, where it will demonstrate its good manners. It will try to sign in at the registration desk, find a conference room, give a speech and answer questions.
GRACE, a drum-shaped contraption with a digitally animated face that appears on a computer display, is the work of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and elsewhere.
GRACE is the only autonomous machine -- that is, one without remote controllers -- entered in the mobile robot challenge at the American Association of Artificial Intelligence's national meeting in Edmonton, Alberta.
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Full Article
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/07/26/socially.skilled.robot.ap/index.html |
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Microsoft to Pump Up R&D, Hire 5,000 |
7/26/2002 |
Microsoft Corp. said on Thursday it would boost spending on research and development by 20 percent and hire nearly 10 percent more workers this year, buoyed by strong sales of Windows XP.
Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, said the software giant would make "aggressive" investments as it prepares to bet the company's future and its mainstay, the Windows operating system, on Web-based services.
"We are increasing the level of investment for the future," Gates told a gathering of about 300 analysts and reporters.
Gates said the software giant would increase research spending by 20 percent to $5.3 billion and add 5,000 employees to its workforce of 50,500 for the current year that ends in June 2003.
Full Article:
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=HND2HBJIVS1BECRBAEOCFEY?type=technologynews&StoryID=1254425 |
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Nokia, Nintendo Top EU Customs' Haul of Fakes |
7/26/2002 |
Nokia mobile phones and Nintendo game consoles were the runaway favorites of smugglers caught bringing fake goods into the European Union in 2001, figures released by the EU showed on Friday.
Customs officers in the 15 EU member states seized about 530,000 counterfeit Nokia products in 2001, or 52 percent of electrical items intercepted.
The haul was more than five times the number carrying the brand of Nokia's rivals Ericsson, Siemens and Motorola Inc..
Fake Nintendo products made up 48 percent of all toys and games seized, or about 750,000 items. No breakdown of the category was available, but an EU official said it included games consoles.
Neither Microsoft Corp. nor Sony Corp., Nintendo's big rivals in the games console market, were listed as having significant numbers of imitations in the same category.
Full Article:
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=HND2HBJIVS1BECRBAEOCFEY?type=technologynews&StoryID=1256908 |
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More nVIDIA NV30 Specs |
7/26/2002 |
.13u process
AGP 8x support
DDR2 Memory support
Vertex Shaders beyond DirectX9 VS2.0 - supporting up to 1024 static instructions, 65536 instructions executed in loops, branches, and subroutines
Pixel Shader beyond DirectX9 PS2.0 - with up to 1024 instructions
Support for OpenGL and DirectX HLSL via Cg
OpenGL Extensions supporting long Pixel Shader & Vertex Shader programs
High Precision (64- and 128-bit Floating Point color)
New focus on computational efficiency rather than memory efficiency
Advanced programmability and high-level shading language support
Expected this fall along with DirectX9
Full Article:
http://www.beyond3d.com/#news1816 |
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nVIDIA NV30 Q3 - Q4 2002? |
7/26/2002 |
Q-"I'm interested in information on your NV30 and NV35 series, but was considering ATI's 9700 series for work and play due to recent release announcements as well as impending ones. Which would you suggest?"(loaded question)
A- "NV35? what ever are you talking about?" she says with a large grin.
Q- "How would any 'hypothetical' Nvidia hardware compare to ATI's next gen cards?"
A- "Extremly Favorably" she says with an even larger grin."
Q- "Can you offer any specs?"
A- Nope, but I can say that any hypothetical specs you may have seen are 'probably' fairly accurate if not a bit underscored."
Q- Any reason i should wait? I could really use an upgrade from my Elsa Gladiac 920..."
A- Lets just say that our forthcoming consumer and workstation cards will redefine what you beleve a graphics card is and should be. "
Q- "Any time frame I can look forward to?"
A- "It shouldn't be very long, we don't like to give release dates. But it should not be too long of a wait Q3 - Q4 2002 maybe early to mid 2003".
Full Forum Posting:
http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=189642 |
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Hotmail clean-out catches members out |
7/26/2002 |
For three months, freelance writer Lydia Zajc updated friends and family on her adventures in Southeast Asia by sending detailed messages from her Hotmail account.
In a series of e-mails, she described munching noodles and buns on the streets of China and watching monks receive alms in Laos. Zajc planned to repurpose the e-mails for travel writing pieces when she returned home.
But on Wednesday, Zajc, who had saved the messages in her Hotmail Sent file, logged on to find that her e-mails had evaporated into thin air. "I literally broke down in tears," said Zajc, who now lives in Newfoundland, Canada, and for the past 24 hours has been furiously e-mailing recipients of the messages, hoping some of them saved her missives.
As part of a series of new storage policies aimed at driving more people toward its paid services, Microsoft has instituted a plan to delete sent Hotmail messages that are more than 30 days old. On Tuesday, it began erasing all messages in subscribers' Sent file transmitted before June 16.
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-946430.html?tag=fd_top |
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FBI to investigate Princeton admissions hacking incident |
7/26/2002 |
The Federal Bureau of Investigation will examine charges that Princeton admissions officials gained repeated, unauthorized access to the admissions decisions of 11 Yale applicants by hacking into Yale's online admissions notification system.
Yale officials filed the complaint with the FBI Thursday after an investigation found that the University's online notification Web site had been accessed 18 times from computers at Princeton, including 14 times from within the admissions office. Stephen LeMenager, Princeton's associate dean and director of admissions, told the News Wednesday that officials in his office had accessed the site using social security numbers taken from the students' applications to Princeton.
Princeton officials said Thursday that they would conduct their own investigation, involving outside participants, and that they had placed LeMenager on administrative leave for the duration of the investigation.
Full Article:
http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=19455 |
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Radeon 9700 will ship without DirectX 9 |
7/26/2002 |
By now, we all know that ATI announced its R300 cards and named them Radeon 9700 just few days back and, indeed, we were happy to be part of that global event in London. And, even though we expect this card to be the fastest you will be able to purchase in September, for around $399 (US), there is one minor detail that we believe you should be aware of.
ATI was over the moon to be able to inform us that this card is fully DirectX 9 compatible and there are even few demos that will be able to show you the benefits of this new API and the hardware that is able to support it.
ATI claims this card will hit the shelves in September and we have no reason to disbelieve them, but it seems that DirectX 9 will not be ready to be shipped at that time.
We mentioned in a previous article that DirectX 9 should be launched sometime around the beginning of October, so if ATI wants to deliver its cards in first two weeks of September, as is currently scheduled, it will need to ship cards with DirectX 8.1 or 8.1b and to ship it with a driver that will have support for DirectX 8.1 instructions but not for DirectX 9 as well.
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4626
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Perseid Meteor Shower Begins Slow Crawl to Aug. 12 Peak |
7/25/2002 |
The annual Perseid meteor shower has begun in modest fashion and will soon start building toward a peak Aug. 12, when as many as 60 or more shooting stars could be visible each hour from the Northern Hemisphere.
The Perseids are not as spectacular as the November Leonids, but they are dependable. Nearly every year they generate a shooting star per minute at their peak.
Weather permitting, this will be a good year to look for the Perseids, because the Moon will be near its new phase, leaving the skies at their darkest. The best viewing times run from Aug. 11 through Aug. 13.
For city dwellers whose view is hampered by bright lights, only the brightest meteors can be seen, so a trip to the country is the only way to get the full effect of the Perseids.
Perseids are tiny things, ranging in size from sand grains to peas. The material was shed long ago by a comet named Swift-Tuttle. This comet, like all others that pass through the inner solar system on their orbits around the Sun, is slowly disintegrating. Over the centuries, the comet’s crumbly remains have spread all along its orbit to form a moving river of rubble millions of miles wide and hundreds of millions of miles long.
Full Article:
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/perseids_begins_020725.html |
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xbitlabs releases new HD benchmark |
7/25/2002 |
"As you may have noticed, this year Intel IOMeter test has become very important for our storage products tests, little by little ousting all other benchmarks from the preferred test set. Our readers were not very happy with the too many synthetic benchmarks we use, so in order to prevent this discontent from growing into something more dangerous we had to think of a solution, which could satisfy the sophisticated users' taste.
As you remember, we have already undertaken an attempt to use PCMark2002 from MadOnion (see our article called PCMark2002 as Hard Disk Drive Test), which ended up in failure. So, we continued searching for more "real" tests. And another bit later, when I was reading the Internet in the original for the fifth time, it suddenly occurred to my swollen head: if you want something to be done correctly, do it yourself. So, I started looking for someone who could do the programming better than me :)
Luckily an old acquaintance of mine, Serguey Gromov aka SnakE agreed to help me and to write the test I needed so badly. The whole thing didn't take too long, so today I am happy to offer you a new benchmark, a public version of the new File-Copy Test (FC-Test).
As it follows from the name, the program copies the files measuring the time it required to complete the task. But this is not just a more convenient stop-watch in the tester's hand, but…"
Full Article:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/storage/fc-test/
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Intel's desktop CPUs in graphics |
7/25/2002 |
"The following chart shows the projected introduction of Pentium 4s at 2.80GHz and greater from the third quarter, culminating, in the second half of next year, with Prescott processors, using a 90 nanometer core, at speeds greater than 3.20GHz.
We would not be in the least surprised if these projections are conservative -- Intel has already managed to squeeze a 2.80GHz Pentium 4 into Q3 with apparently no trouble at all, indicating that its Northwood process is, in chip company speak, "ramping" well.
The 3.06GHz processor is slated to use hyperthreading,, earlier than most expected, and there was some talk in the channel about Intel possibly introducing that into its 2.80GHz processor. That's still possible -- the code is there and someone just needs to flick the switch.
We also think Intel is being deliberately cautious about the initial frequency speed of its Prescott -- although it is telling manufacturers this will launch at speeds in excess of 3.20GHz, we think Intel will actually wait to see how far AMD manages to get with the clock speeds of its Hammer processors."
Full Article w/ Chart:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4610
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Hammer Benchmarks in October |
7/25/2002 |
"Hammer Benchmarks In October
Reported by: Chris Tom At: 10:57 AM Source: Siggraph
If you have been waiting for Hammer benchmarks from AMD then this October at the Microprocessor Forum will be a good place to be, at least according to AMD here at Siggraph. I've got quite a bit of Siggraph coverage up in the next couple of days."
Full Article:
http://www.amdzone.com |
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ATI clarifies Windows driver confusion |
7/25/2002 |
"Canadian Graphics firm ATI has moved fast to allay worries about support for its future 9000 Pro and 9700 devices.
A representative from the firm has pointed us to a Microsoft statement which indicates why there are some problems – which sooner or later other devices will run up against.
The note from Microsoft reads:
WHQL will no longer accept certain submissions
"Beginning 01 July 2002, at 12:01 A.M. PST, WHQL will no longer accept submissions for all hardware devices and systems for the following operating systems. This includes all submission types for all devices and systems.
"Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition (SE)
"Windows NT 4.0 Workstation
"Windows NT 4.0 Server
"As a reminder, WHQL previously stopped accepting submissions for Windows 98 Gold in the latter part of 1999."
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4619
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Egyptian Couple Jailed over Nude Internet Photos |
7/25/2002 |
"An Egyptian court has jailed a man and his wife for six months for posting pornographic photos and films of themselves on the Internet, security sources said on Thursday.
The man, an engineer in his 40s, and his wife, in her 20s, were arrested after a special police vice squad traced the site on the Internet, the source said.
Egyptian police have stepped up vice surveillance in recent years with a special unit that specializes in Internet crime.
In May, Cairo police arrested another man and his wife on suspicion they had posted naked photos of the woman on the Internet."
Original Article:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?u=/nm/20020725/wr_nm/crime_egypt_dc_1 |
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AMD fielding 64 bits for PCs |
7/25/2002 |
"Advanced Micro Devices is building a 64-bit field of dreams.
As Intel accelerates the launch date of its 3GHz Pentium 4 chip, arch rival AMD continues to build the foundation for "ClawHammer." The 64-bit Athlon processor is expected to come out early next year, giving desktop PCs a performance similar to that of workstations used in research labs at DaimlerChrysler or NASA.
To make sure ClawHammer arrives on solid footing, AMD is working with a long list of partners who will build that hardware and software that can take advantage of such a chip. The company has already sent tens of PCs fitted with the upcoming chip to game developers and multimedia software creators, said John Crank, a senior branding associate for the Athlon. This is part of Operation Rolling Thunder, AMD's campaign to introduce the chip, he said.
AMD is, so far, the only major chipmaker to announce plans for a 64-bit chip for desktops.
"Just because it's there, we think people are going to use it," said Mark de Frere, AMD's Athlon brand manager.
Because of ClawHammer's 64-bit architecture--which gives the processor the ability to process twice as much data per clock cycle as current Athlon chips and allows consumer desktops to offer significantly larger amounts of memory than they do now--AMD asserts that the chip will usher in a new class of high-performance games and other complex applications such as video editing and voice recognition."
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-946050.html?tag=fd_lede |
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Net Users Try to Elude the Google Grasp |
7/25/2002 |
The Internet has reminded Camberley Crick that there are disadvantages to having a distinctive name.
In June, Ms. Crick, 24, who works part time as a computer tutor, went to a Manhattan apartment to help a 40-something man learn Windows XP.
After their session, the man pulled out a half-inch stack of printouts of Web pages he said he had found by typing Ms. Crick's name into Google, the popular search engine.
"You've been a busy bee," she says he joked. Among the things he had found were her family Web site, a computer game she had designed for a freshman college class, a program from a concert she had performed in and a short story she wrote in elementary school called "Timmy the Turtle."
"He seemed to know an awful lot about me," Ms. Crick said, including the names of her siblings. "In the back of my mind, I was thinking I should leave soon."
"When she got home, she immediately removed some information from the family Web site, including the turtle story, which her father had posted in 1995."
Oh No! NOT Timmy the Turtle!
Full Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/25/technology/circuits/25GOOG.html |
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On trial: Digital copyright law |
7/25/2002 |
"The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Thursday in an attempt to overturn key portions of a controversial 1998 copyright law.
The suit asks a federal judge to rule that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is so sweeping that it unconstitutionally interferes with researchers' ability to evaluate the effectiveness of Internet filtering software.
By suing on behalf of a 22-year-old programmer who's researching the oft-buggy products, the civil liberties group hopes to prompt the first ruling that would curtail the DMCA's wide reach.
After the DMCA was used to intimidate Princeton professor Ed Felten and his colleagues into self-censoring a presentation last year, the law became an instant magnet for criticism. But so far, every judge has upheld the DMCA's broad restrictions on the "circumvention of copyright protection systems."
This case will be different, the ACLU hopes, because it features a sympathetic plaintiff, Ben Edelman, and because it involves the socially beneficial act of critiquing software that is frequently used in public schools and libraries. Edelman had testified as an expert witness in a case the ACLU brought against a federal law that compelled public libraries to install filters."
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-946266.html?tag=fd_lede |
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Balancing the Matter-Antimatter Books |
7/25/2002 |
The universe is precisely as lopsided as physicists had thought.
Matter in the universe dominates antimatter to just the degree predicted by the theory of subatomic particle physics called the Standard Model. That is what researchers will announce today at the International Conference on High-Energy Physics in Amsterdam.
The asymmetry between matter and antimatter is the difference between a universe filled with stars, planets and galaxies, and one in which there is nothing but a glow of radiation. When matter and antimatter meet, they annihilate one another in a burst of gamma rays. Had the Big Bang produced them in equal amounts, it would have set the cosmic stage for an orgy of self-destruction.
Fortunately, it didn't. Today's experimental confirmation of why matter prevailed is the result of three years of experiments. They took place at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), a particle-physics facility in California run by the US Department of Energy.
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Full Article
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020722/020722-7.html |
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Goliath Telescope: OWL's Eye May Find First Galaxies |
7/24/2002 |
A group of European astronomers and engineers are planning to cast a new heavyweight into the observation ring, an optical telescope bigger than a football field.
The European Southern Observatory (ESO), a consortium of 10 countries with a pair of observatories in the Atacama Desert in Chile, are in the concept stage of designing a ground-based telescope 10 times larger than anything in use today. The ESO telescope is just one of a number of extremely large skywatching instruments under development by countries around the world, but outstrips them all in proportion.
Concept designs for the ESO telescope, dubbed the OverWhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL), call for an instrument with a 109-yard (100-meter) aperture made up of segmented mirrors to peer deep into the universe.
"As of today, we have a baseline concept relying almost entirely on proven technologies," said OWL project engineer Phillipe Dierickx in an e-mail interview. "We've also started to look for an OWL's nest, and the search goes worldwide."
Like its avian counterpart, the OWL telescope promises to have stunning night vision. At its heart is a system known as adaptive optics, which allows astronomers to correct for the blurring effect of the atmosphere during observations. The current Goliath of optical telescopes, the 33-foot (10-meter) twins at W.M. Keck Observatory at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, uses them, as do the ESO's own Very Large Telescope (VLT) in northern Chile and many others around the world.
Full Article:
http://space.com/businesstechnology/technology/owl_telescope_020724.html |
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Asus KT400 Board Almost Ready to Ship |
7/24/2002 |
"I would like to stress that A7V8X will be a product with very broad features. The only thing we could probably complain about is the absence of an IDE RAID controller onboard. However, besides the standard DDR400, AGP 8x, USB 2.0 and ATA/133, the mainboard will also boast: SerialATA 150 protocol implemented via an integrated controller from Promise, IEEE 1394 ports implemented via VIA VI6307 controller and 10/100Mbit Ethernet by Broadcom controller. Also the mainboard will support 6-channel AC’97 sound and monitor processor status via a special thermal diode integrated into the Athlon XP CPU."
Full Article:
http://xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1027493433 |
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nForce2 Performance |
7/24/2002 |
"Let’s dwell on the actual numbers:
In professional SPEC Viewperf benchmarks at 1280x1024 the new chipset managed to prove 10-20% faster than the classical KT333.
In Quake3 (1024x768) the advantage over the rivals made around 10%.
As for SYSmark2002 and PCmark2002 tests, nForce2 appeared 8% ahead of the rivals in the first one and 10% ahead in the second one.
During the tests they used PC2700 DDR SDRAM.
They have also tested the integrated graphics core of the nForce2, which is known to be a modification of GeForce4 MX. Of course, the performance of the newcomer is 1.5-2 times higher than that of the predecessor used in nForce 420D and much higher than that of all other integrated solutions tested. If we compare the performance of the integrated nForce2 graphics with that of some external add-on graphics card, GeForce4 MX420 will be the closest of all, as it falls behind the newcomer just a little bit because of the slow SDRAM memory."
Full Article:
http://xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1027490857 |
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Space rock 'on collision course' with Earth? |
7/24/2002 |
An asteroid discovered just weeks ago has become the most threatening object yet detected in space.
A preliminary orbit suggests that 2002 NT7 is on an impact course with Earth and could strike the planet on 1 February, 2019 - although the uncertainties are large.
Astronomers have given the object a rating on the so-called Palermo technical scale of threat of 0.06, making NT7 the first object to be given a positive value.
From its brightness, astronomers estimate it is about two kilometres wide, large enough to cause continent-wide devastation on Earth.
Full Article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2147879.stm |
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AOL Shifts Instant Messaging Compatibility Efforts |
7/24/2002 |
America Online, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc. , has put on hold its efforts to let users of its instant messaging service chat with users of other services through a direct connection, according to a letter AOL filed with the Federal Communications Commission.
As a condition to AOL's $106.2 billion purchase of Time Warner, the company was required to provide regulators with an update every six months on its efforts toward "interoperability" --the ability for users of one messaging service to chat with users of rival services. AOL is the market leader in instant messaging.
AOL said in the letter, filed July 16, it decided to put its efforts for server-to-server interoperability on hold. This form of interoperability involves AOL's servers and servers of another messaging service and lets users of different services chat through a direct connection.
Full Article:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=582& |
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ST Micro Puts Damper on Recovery Hopes |
7/24/2002 |
STMicroelectronics NV , the world's third largest chipmaker, dampened hopes for a technology spending recovery on Wednesday after it issued a cautious outlook for the third quarter.
The Franco-Italian company, which swung to a second-quarter net profit against a loss in the same period a year ago after an inventory writedown, said revenue would grow only "slightly" in the September quarter from the June quarter, citing an uncertain economic environment and continued price pressure.
"The recovery continues, but we don't see any boom in any segment," Chief Executive Pasquale Pistorio told journalists and analysts in Milan.
Full Article:
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=technologynews&StoryID=1242222 |
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MSN TV prank creating "emergencies" |
7/24/2002 |
MSN TV users are inadvertently calling emergency services after falling prey to a prank program that changes the daily dialup number on their set-top boxes to 911.
The program arrives in an e-mail message with the subject line "NEAT" and has been plaguing users since at least April, according to posts on newsgroups regarding WebTV, the former moniker for Microsoft's interactive TV service.
"When my mother tried to log on to WebTV, it started to dial 911," said one woman in a newsgroup post. "She shut it off but we got a call from the police department anyway checking to see if anything was wrong."
"One lady in her group ended up with the sheriff knocking at her door," the woman wrote.
The prank is not the first time that a malicious program has been used to call 911. In April 2000, the National Infrastructure Protection Center warned that a computer virus was causing infected PCs to dial emergency services.
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-945970.html?tag=fd_top |
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California officially cancels Oracle contract |
7/24/2002 |
The state of California has officially canceled a sprawling six-year deal that united scores of its contracts with software maker Oracle under one mega-contract, state officials said Tuesday.
"We are pleased with Oracle and Northrop Grumman's assistance in unwinding this contract," Clothilde Hewlett, interim director of the Department of General Services, said in a statement. "Their efforts to return the state to the conditions that existed prior to the (enterprise license agreement) made it possible to avoid any additional financial burden to the state." Northrop Grumman is the parent company of Logicon, Oracle's reseller in the deal.
The $95 million contract, signed in 2001, became the subject of a politically charged, two-month hearing by the state's Joint Legislative Audit Committee after a state audit report released in April estimated the contract would cost California $41 million--rather than save the state $100 million over six to 10 years, as Oracle contended.
During the course of the hearing, four high-ranking officials resigned over allegations of negligence and misconduct in dealing with Oracle and its reseller Logicon. The disclosure that an aide to California Gov. Gray Davis had accepted a $25,000 campaign contribution from Oracle just days after the state signed the contract was a political embarrassment to Davis, who is running for re-election. Davis returned the contribution to Oracle shortly after that fact came to light.
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-945970.html?tag=fd_top |
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Celerons crash in price, soar in speeds |
7/24/2002 |
Intel will now introduce a 2GHz Celeron at $103 on the 1st of September, the 1.9GHz Celeron will be displaced from the roadmap, and prices of the other parts in its line up will continue to be pushed down.
On that date, the 1.8GHz Celeron will cost $83, the 1.7GHz part $69, the 1.4GHz part $64 and the 1.2GHz Celeron $64. The 1.1GHz Celeron will disappear and there's not much life left in the 1.2GHz processor either.
There's still no sign of any move towards 533MHz front side buses for the Celerons though. As the table below shows, by the second half of next year, Intel projects P4 Celerons at greater speeds than 2.20GHz. Chipzilla is being cautious – we'd expect higher rates on these parts by then.
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4571 |
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Intel's Rio Rancho fab hit by Act of God |
7/24/2002 |
"Local newspaper the Bradenton Herald reported Monday that Intel's Rio Rancho plant in Albuquerque was hit by a bolt from the blue, temporarily shutting down production at the leading fab.
The report said that Intel lost $800 million worth of chips because of the lighting strike.
That sounds like an overestimate to us, unless the lightning strike really ripped through the facilities.
The paper quotes a fire expert from the US National Lighting Safety Institute as reporting that the problem could be insufficient lightning conductor facilities at the fab. As the picture in the link below shows, thunderstorms are quite common in this part of the US."
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4578
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nVIDIA Chipset Release Dates? |
7/23/2002 |
"Keeping in mind the launching of the new ATI graphics chips, we consider it very interesting to collect a bit more info on the adequate response from NVIDIA. Since this company keeps all the info highly confidential, it was always a problem to get any exact info on the schedule of the new chipsets. What we know so far, we are going to share with you.
NV18 and NV28 are to come in August (these are the contemporary versions of NV15 and NV25 with AGP 8x support).
NV30 chip (the next generation of NVIDIA solutions is to come in October.
Unfortunately, for the same reasons we don’t have any detailed info on the specs of the upcoming NV30, and the credibility of all we know is pretty doubtful"
Full Article:
http://xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1027400802 |
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The Little Spacecraft that Could … and Did |
7/23/2002 |
"Decades after their original objectives were completed, Pioneer, Voyager and IMP-8 keep on trucking.
A Deep Space Network antenna in Madrid picks up a feeble and unexpected radio signal--a cry from a lost spacecraft. It is April 2001. Pioneer 10, missing, feared dead for eight months, was phoning home to let scientists know that it was still alive and kicking. Intrepid Pioneer 10 went on to celebrate a milestone 30th birthday in 2002, and today 10 belongs to an elite group of spacecraft that just refuse to die.
More than a quarter of a century after their launches, Pioneer 10, Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and the IMP-8 spacecraft are still going strong. During their primary missions in the Seventies and Eighties, they gave us a unique insight into the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and the solar-wind conditions around Earth. And today, thanks to some nifty long-distance repair work by dedicated space scientists on the ground, the probes continue to radio-signal postcards home to tell us about the path to interstellar space.
Pioneer 10 was launched on March 2, 1972, on an expedition to Jupiter. To mark its 30th birthday, scientists sent a special transmission to the retired spacecraft. After 22 hours, having crossed 7.4 billion miles, Pioneer 10’s reply--equal in power to a nightlight--was heard loud and clear. But without careful remote control maneuvering, Pioneer’s latest messages home could well have been lost in space."
Full Article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D9901-6364-1D2F-96D7809EC588EEDF&catID=4
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nForce2 Based Mainboards to Come Only in September |
7/23/2002 |
"An interesting observation. When the English version of the press-release about the launching of nForce2 chipset was released, it turned out to contain some very sad news. NVIDIA claimed that the mass production of nForce2 chipsets is to begin only in August and the boards based on these chipsets will appear in stores in September at the earliest.
ABIT, AOpen, ASUS, Chaintech, Leadtek, MSI, Shuttle and Soltek have already expressed their interest in making nForce2 based mainboards. Later on other mainboard makers are likely to join the team."
Original Article:
http://xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1027443963
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NVIDIA's Solution for ClawHammer! |
7/23/2002 |
"Together with the launching of nForce2 chipset, NVIDIA announced one more solution known under Crush K8 codename and intended for the future 64bit AMD ClawHammer CPUs. The presentation of the new chipset was carried out by the platform division director, Drew Henry.
Once again NVIDIA introduced a solution, which doesn’t have anything in common with the competitor’s analogies, and moreover, looks very logical and technically complete.
Let’s recall what should characterize the chipset North Bridge, namely its high-frequency part. These are the supported memory, the graphics interface (AGP and/or integrated graphics), and the bus connecting the chipset North and South Bridges (V-Link, MuTIOL). That’s it. And now you remember that in case of ClawHammer processors the memory controller is integrated into the processor die. So what do we have left? AGP and the bus between the bridges. And what do we then need high-frequency North Bridge if the AGP support could be implemented in the South Bridge (by the way, the AGP 8x frequency is only 66MHz)? Of course, this doesn’t eliminate the connection between the chipset and the CPU, but removes one chip from our equation, which reduces the system cost. As a result, NVIDIA got a chipset, which consists of only one south-eastern or south-western chip, while all the other companies took the good old way of introducing two-chip solutions."
Full Article:
http://xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1027443365
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Will Apple use Hammer for Apple Macs? |
7/23/2002 |
"We speculated before, right at the beginning of this year, that Apple and OSX would have no problems migrating to X86 architectures but there's philosophy, ego and troops of followers which might get in the way of that.
Nevertheless, Steve Jobs hinted in the strongest possible way last week that after all had moved to OSX, in 2003 it might just be conceivable that this operating system could be ported to an X86 architecture.
As OS News reports, this would more likely be the architecture AMD will start shoving out the door towards the end of this year, colloquially known as the Hammer family.
One of Apple's problems is that the faster processors in both Intel-based and AMD-based PCs are kicking butt in applications like Photoshop and Jobs, whether he likes it or not, is being dragged into the Megahurts Wars.
We know that AMD pretends it's not in these Megahurts Wars anymore, and sometimes even Intel has a go at saying performance isn't everything, but the truth is that big numbers appeal when you're shelling out money."
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4537 |
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Jobs Considers Running Mac OS on x86 platforms... again |
7/23/2002 |
MacWorld showed us that Jobs is running the old migration-to-the- PC-idea up the familiar flagpole. While the eventual target for such a strategic move is the erosion of Microsoft's desktop OS market share, the nearer-term targets for Jobs' words are manufacturers and tier-one OEMs such as Dell, and HP.
Industry watchers will remember the various dual-boot wars between IBM's OS/2, and flavors of Windows - 3.1, NT and Win95. Microsoft concluded those wars victoriously, fighting tooth and nail to bury OS/2 and, aided by IBM's ham-handed support, succeeded smartly.
Lots of info here, Go check it out:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4559
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"Pir8s" set rise to Microsoft challenge |
7/23/2002 |
Nothing earth shattering here, but in case you didn't already know:
"I am writing to you regarding your article. Microsoft set to include new anti-piracy measures in SP1
There is currently a keygenerator out there that whips up new numbers for you already, so you're not using the original "FCKGW" key that is widely known.
If the new system consists of blacklisting that key, it has already been circumvented. Im sure MS has something more tricky up its sleeve, but there is NO doubt it will be broken.
As they say, "As quick as software can be made, software can be taken apart".
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4562 |
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Athlon CPU's at 166 MHz FSB? |
7/23/2002 |
"Well, I have been told over and over that AMD was not looking into making the Athlon a 166 MHz FSB part, but that looks to be incorrect. At Monday's nForce 2 release part, both Jen-Hsen Huang of NVIDIA and Hector Ruiz of AMD commented on the future of the Socket 462 Athlon and the possible use of the 166 MHz FSB. Neither said that it was official, but that the possibility does exist. One of the slides at the nForce 2 presentation said "First 333 MHz FSB Product" (or something to that effect). With the KT333 from VIA and the nForce 2 from NVIDIA both running well at 166 MHz FSB, the possibility is definitely there. The only question is how far AMD wants to take the Socket 462 Athlon. There are many indications that the Athlon has quite a bit of life left in it, and that the Hammer series will be relegated to the high end until mid-2003, with the Socket 462 products making up the rest of the field. What needs to be weighed here is the performance gain vs. the cost of implementing and validating such an upgrade for the Socket 462 Athlon. Some are saying that setting the bus at 166 MHz FSB (333 DDR) will give approximately a 10% performance increase. This isn't bad considering that the fastest Athlon XP out there is about 10% slower overall than the fastest Intel Pentium 4 on a DDR based platform.
When asked directly, here is what Damon Muzny of AMD officially told me:
AMD is focused on delivering what customers want. Customers have expressed interest in the possibility of taking more advantage of the Athlon XP processor's front-side bus performance capability. As a result, AMD is evaluating the possibility of increasing the FSB speed of our AMD Athlon XP processors above 266MHz. We will disclose more details if an increased FSB solution is brought to market.
There are again new rumors about the upcoming Barton, and some of them are starting to sound like the article I wrote here. The latest is that it will feature "Hammer-like" optimizations, mainly that it could reflect the 12 stage pipeline on the Hammer to achieve higher clock speeds. If this is true, the possibility of it mirroring the entire Hammer core (sans HT links and memory controller) could be great. This then leads back to the 64 bit Socket 462 architecture. Crazy stuff if true."
Full Article:
http://www.penstarsys.com/ |
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Fingerprinting of UK school kids causes outcry |
7/23/2002 |
"The widespread fingerprinting of UK primary school children has been roundly condemned by watchdog Privacy International.
The human rights watchdog today warned that tens of thousands of UK school children are being fingerprinted by schools, often without the knowledge or consent of their parents.
This under-reported electronic finger printing is being conducted as part of a cost cutting "automation" of school libraries. Privacy International has condemned the procedure, branding it "dangerous, illegal and unnecessary".
As many as 200,000 primary and high school children from the age of seven have already been finger printed. Supplier Micro Librarian Systems estimates that its technology, which is similar to identification systems used in US prisons and by the German military, is in use by 350 schools throughout the country."
Full Article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/26305.html |
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Serious PHP vulnerability reported |
7/23/2002 |
The PHP form-data POST handler is susceptible to a malicious POST request that can trigger an error condition which, depending on your hardware, can crash the machine or provide for remote exploitation.
On an Intel x86 machine an attacker has no control over memory allocation/recovery and can only cause a denial of service; on a Sparc/Solaris machine an attacker would be able to free chunks of memory and overwrite them arbitrarily to run code.
PHP versions 4.2.0 and 4.2.1 are vulnerable. The PHP Group has released both a fixed version and patches, including binaries for Windows, available for download here.
Full Article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/26316.html |
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New Laser Aids Nanotech Measurement |
7/23/2002 |
July 22, 2002 – Researchers at a joint government-academic institute, reporting in the current issue of Science, have created laser light in the previously unattainable extreme ultraviolet spectrum, allowing detailed optical observations of processes at the molecular and atomic scale, United Press International reported.
UPI reported that the team of scientists at JILA, a partnership between the University of Colorado at Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, worked around obstacles to generating coherent EUV light, which is difficult to control because of its very short wavelength.
Posting From:
http://www.smalltimes.com/ |
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Royalty fees killing most Internet radio stations |
7/23/2002 |
"For three years, Rusty Hodge ran his SomaFM Internet radio station. He watched it grow from 10 listeners an hour to 2,000 and become one of the more popular Net stops thanks to its eclectic mix of electronica and independent pop, the sort of stuff that's tough to find on commercial radio.
But Soma has shut down because of federal copyright royalty fees that go into effect in September. ''We would have to pay $10,500 a month,'' says Hodge, 40, who ran Soma (named for the San Francisco area south of Market Street) out of his garage. ''We existed on listener donations. Our last month produced $3,000. We weren't in any position to pay that kind of money.''
The new royalties facing Webcasters and threatening the existence of many of them stem directly from early concerns by the music industry about how the new medium of the Internet would affect their business. With industry input, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was enacted in 1998, years before Napster became the record labels' nightmare. One provision of the sweeping legislation gave the U.S. Copyright Office until 2002 to work out a royalty rate for the use of music on Internet radio.
Full Article:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=711&ncid=711&e=1&u=/usatoday/20020722/tc_usatoday/4294839
Related Article:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002-07-21-radio_x.htm |
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Questions about eBay-PayPal merger remain |
7/23/2002 |
With its profits and customers still rising at a healthy clip, PayPal could have plenty to boast about Tuesday when the online payment provider announces its second-quarter results. But one second-quarter statistic might prove nettlesome to Mountain View-based PayPal now that its board has accepted a $1.4 billion takeover bid from online auction site eBay.
During the second quarter, the average closing price of PayPal's shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market was $23.85 — slightly higher than the $23.61-per-share offer that the company accepted from San Jose-based eBay on July 7.
The proposed eBay sale has inspired a variety of theories — and several lawsuits — revolving around why PayPal agreed to a relatively modest price amid so much optimism about the company's prospects.
Full Article:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/techmergers/2002-07-22-ebay-paypal_x.htm |
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EBay Rolls Out Fixed-Price Format |
7/23/2002 |
"Internet trading leader eBay Inc. increased its shift toward fixed-price sales Monday by launching a new format that lets buyers and sellers skip traditional auctions entirely.
EBay, which began as an auction-only site, already facilitates instant sales of items, both through Half.com, a site it acquired in 2000, and through the ``Buy It Now'' option, which accounts for one-third of all items listed on eBay.
With ``Buy it Now,'' sellers can list an item at a set price, and the sale ends if someone offers to pay that price. If someone enters a bid below that price, the ``Buy It Now'' option is canceled, and the sale turns into a regular auction.
Buy It Now will remain, but now sellers have another option: selling their items at a fixed price, with no auction entering the picture under any circumstances. Either the product sells for the listed price or not at all.
The move had been requested by users who wanted a true fixed-price format, eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said.
The refinement also figures to appeal to traditional retailers and other companies that are increasingly unloading products on eBay.
Shares of San Jose-based eBay lost $3.50, nearly 6 percent, to $56.06 on the Nasdaq Stock Market."
Full Article:
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/main.html?SLUG=EBAY-FIXED-PRICES |
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More on the JPEG Copyright Claim |
7/23/2002 |
"A small videoconferencing company is laying claim to the ubiquitous JPEG format, igniting a backlash from some consumers and from a standards organization.
Austin, Texas-based Forgent Networks posted a press release to its site earlier this month claiming to own a patent covering the technology behind JPEG, one of the most popular formats for compressing and sharing images on the Internet. According to the firm, the devices covered by the patent include cameras, cell phones, camcorders, personal digital assistants, scanners and other devices.
It took a little more than a week for the statement to find its way to the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) committee, which denounced any attempts to derive fees from the standard.
"It has always been a strong goal of the JPEG committee that its standards should be implementable in their baseline form without payment of royalty and license fees, and the committee would like to record their disappointment that some organizations appear to be working in conflict with this goal," Richard Clark, managing director of U.K.-based Web software company Elysium and the head of the U.K. JPEG delegation, wrote on the committee's behalf. "
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-945686.html?tag=fd_lede |
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Real Goes Open Source? |
7/23/2002 |
update RealNetworks on Monday unveiled a new open-source version of its streaming media technology that supports multiple file formats for audio and video, including those that use Microsoft's Windows Media technology.
The new campaign, dubbed "Helix," and first reported by The New York Times, marks one of the most ambitious moves in the company's history. RealNetworks is simultaneously releasing technology without permission that plugs in to Microsoft's competing software and is raising the hood on much of its own software technology to "open source" developers or anyone else who wants to look.
The twin moves raise the risk of lawsuits and renewed competition--potentially even from Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft itself, once it gets a look under the hood at RealNetworks' technology. But it marks a dramatic, potential way for a company watching its market share diminish to regain momentum and support across an industry where many other players remain skeptical of Microsoft's power.
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-945406.html?tag=fd_top |
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Nvidia buys software company Exluna |
7/23/2002 |
"Graphics chip leader Nvidia announced on Monday that it has acquired software start-up Exluna, which settled a copyright lawsuit filed by Pixar Animation Studios.
Founded two years ago by a group of former Pixar artists, Berkeley, Calif.-based Exluna specialized in tools for creating 3D images for film and other media. The company's products include Entropy, a $2,250 package of tools for rendering 3D images, and the free Blue Moon Rendering Tools package.
Pixar's lawsuit, filed last March in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleged that Exluna's products infringed on Emeryville, Calif.-based Pixar's patents for RenderMan, a $5,000 package of rendering tools used by many leading animation studios.
Details of the settlement, which was also announced Monday, and terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Nvidia representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment."
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-945553.html?tag=fd_top |
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Intel Pushes 2.8GHz/3.0GHz P4 Lineup Ahead of Schedule |
7/23/2002 |
"Intel is pushing ahead the release of faster Pentium 4 processors in an effort to speed even further ahead of rival Advanced Micro Devices.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker will come out with a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 for desktops later this quarter, and a 3GHz Pentium 4 in time for the holiday buying season, said sources close to the company. Earlier, the company said it would come out with a 3GHz Pentium 4 in the fourth quarter.
Additionally, the company plans to release a 2.2GHz Pentium 4 for notebooks before the end of the year and unveil "Banias" a new, energy-efficient mobile chip designed specifically for notebooks. Banias will not be sold under the Pentium name, a source said, but will be given its own brand name similar to the budget Celeron line or the Xeon chips for servers."
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-945684.html?tag=fd_top |
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Customized supercomputer wins speed race |
7/23/2002 |
U.S. supercomputers have been the world's most powerful since the first high-performance machines analyzed virtual nuclear blasts, climate change and the makeup of the universe.
Now, one built in Japan with an "old" design runs five times faster than the previous record holder, a machine that simulates nuclear tests at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
"This machine is powerful enough that a researcher who uses it can do in one day what it takes a researcher in the U.S. to do in one month," said Jack Dongarra, a University of Tennessee professor who tracks the world's 500 speediest computers.
The slow speed of the U.S. computers is thought to be due to the fact that the U.S. is using off the shelf components instead of making custom parts in their machines. Or it could just be that the Japanese are using Liquid Nitrogen to cool their machines ;)
Full Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/07/22/supercomputer.race.ap/index.html |
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Giant squid washes up on beach |
7/23/2002 |
Scientists believe it to be new species.
"Scientists in Australia are investigating what may be a new species of giant squid, after one of the deep sea creatures washed up on a Tasmanian beach over the weekend.
The squid weighs up to 250 kilograms and, including tentacles, measured almost 18 meters (60 feet), the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported on Monday.
Only two other specimens have been found on Tasmanian shores, in 1986 and 1991, the report said.
Scientists at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery were studying the squid to determine if it was a new species after identifying several new features."
Full Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/07/22/australia.squid/index.html |
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Snakehead Fish to Eat Americans |
7/23/2002 |
"The land-walking snakehead fish that is native to Asia has been found in seven states and the Bush administration will announce Tuesday a ban on U.S. imports of the predatory fish.
The snakehead, which can grow up to 3 feet long (1 meter), eats other fish and can walk across land to find new sources of food in other lakes and streams. The fish can stay out of water for up to three days.
The fish came to light this summer after several snakeheads were found in a Maryland pond. The so-called Frankenfish were dumped there by a local resident who had initially imported them to make soup.
Snakeheads have been found in six other states: Hawaii, Florida, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, according to the Interior Department."
Just put the fish in our Anthrax envelopes. Problem solved.
Full Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/07/23/snakehead.reut/index.html |
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Student charged with keeping anthrax at lab |
7/23/2002 |
This might have caused the 7th Nationwide Outbreak of Anthrax in the United States. Right now I believe more people are being harmed by Second-Hand Smoke than will ever be hurt by Anthrax. Thank goodness for the US Press Machine.
"A University of Connecticut student was charged Monday with keeping anthrax in a campus laboratory but authorities said he will not be prosecuted if he completes a pretrial diversion program.
Tomas Foral, 26, faces up to 10 years in prison for possessing a biological agent. However, the U.S. Attorney's Office said he will be allowed to participate in a program that could include community service.
Foral said he believes the case will be resolved in six months.
"I have no choice," he said outside his home. "It would be very expensive to go to trial. It would be unaffordable to me."
Two vials containing anthrax-infected animal tissue from the 1960s were found in a Foral's freezer in the laboratory November 27, five days after the fifth and final death from last fall's anthrax attacks. Investigators said Foral had been told to destroy the samples, but kept them instead.
The FBI said the samples would have required additional processing to produce infectious spores, but the material was ordered destroyed and the lab building was checked for contamination. "
Full Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/07/22/anthrax.student.lab.ap/index.html
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Italy Violates US 1st Amendment Rights; Shuts Down Web Sites |
7/22/2002 |
"Police in Italy didn't care that five Web sites they deemed blasphemous and thus illegal were located in the United States, where First Amendment protections apply.
The police shut them down anyway in early July, simply by sitting down at the alleged offender's Rome computer.
Talk about the long arm of the law.
Under pressure from their citizens, governments around the world are increasingly abandoning the hands-off attitude they initially had toward the Internet. They are now applying their laws far beyond their borders -- thanks to the borderless medium.
Put another way, foreign citizens and businesses are now being subjected to copyright, speech, consumer protection and other laws enacted by governments in countries where they've had no voice."
Full Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/07/22/borderless.internet.ap/index.html |
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Rare Earth Debate Part 3: Complex Life |
7/22/2002 |
This five-part debate will cover a variety of topics prompted by the hypothesis of "Rare Earth," a book by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee that suggests complex life may be unique to Earth.
In Part 2, the participants discussed how far (or near) alien life might be. Today they examine complex life and the possibility of its occurrence in the universe. Complex life is generally considered any living thing with multiple cells -- as opposed to single celled, microbial life -- and, on Earth anyway, includes everything from the simplest slime molds to human beings. The moderator is Michael Meyer, the NASA senior scientist for astrobiology.
Michael Meyer: I presume that we are in agreement that microbial life, at least, may be common in our stellar neighborhood and even may be present on other planets in our solar system. That being the premise, the probability of complex life elsewhere is then dependent on the probability of the transition from slime to civilization. It happened here, so why not elsewhere? Do you think that complex life should develop on a sizeable fraction of worlds around other stars?
Full Article:
http://space.com/scienceastronomy/rare_earth_3_020722.html |
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New Pentium 4 SiS 648 Rivals PC1066 RDRAM Mobos |
7/22/2002 |
"In the 648 chipset, SiS has delivered one of the best Pentium 4 chipsets available. Paired up with DDR400 memory, the 648 is faster than anything we've tested except the 850E chipset with PC1066 RDRAM. With DDR333 memory, the 648 isn't always fastest, but it's often close. Not only that, but the 648 showed no significant weaknesses in any of our tests, which is an especially important consideration in third-party Pentium 4 chipsets. (The stillborn VIA P4X333, for what it's worth, was inexplicably slow in both Winstone tests.)
Beyond raw performance, the 648 comes with more of the latest features than any of its competitors, including AGP 8X, USB 2.0, Firewire, six-channel audio, a 1GB/s chipset interconnect, and ATA/133. Competing solutions from Intel offer much less: no official support for DDR memory over 266MHz, no ATA/133 support, AGP 4X, and a 266MB/s chipset interconnect. SiS 648 boards ought to be cheaper, faster, and offer more features than Intel DDR motherboards.
And unlike VIA's P4X333/P4X400, the 648 should be widely available soon from top-tier manufacturers, with motherboard partners like Asus and Abit offering boards. In fact, the last SiS board I used extensively was Abit's 645-based SD7-533, and it was nothing short of excellent in terms of stability, performance, and compatibility. Abit has already announced its successor, the SR7-8X.
I should note, also, that the 648's performance with DDR400 memory is the first proof we've seen of DDR400's viability. Naysayers have speculated that DDR400 wouldn't offer much of a performance increase over DDR333 because of the latency penalties exacted by the slower memory timings required to make 400MHz DDR stable. Not so. In bandwidth-sensitive apps, DDR400 is quite a bit faster than DDR333. And it's as fast as or faster than DDR333 even in what we've traditionally considered latency-sensitive apps, like Business Winstone. Our PC1066 RDRAM rig did put on quite a show today, but it had the ring of a swan song. DDR400 can take us to the next level of performance, and that's probably good enough.
Chipsets like the SiS 648 will help. The 648 is excellent. I wouldn't hesitate to put one of these into my own system, given SiS's solid track record with the 640 series of P4 chipsets. And having said that, there's really nothing more to say."
Full Article:
http://tech-report.com/reviews/2002q3/sis-648/index.x?pg=1
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Carbon Copying Others in Email Not Likely to Help? |
7/22/2002 |
However, Greg Barron of the Technion technology institute in Haifa, Israel, suspected that emailing individuals separately is more effective.
"Each one of these people might assume that another guy will probably help," he says.
To test this, Barron and his colleague Eldad Yechiam set up a Yahoo account for a fictitious student called Sarah Feldman, and wrote an email from her asking if the Technion has a biology faculty. They emailed it to 240 people at the Technion, mainly researchers, admin staff and students.
Find it yourself!
Each person received it either with just their own address in the "To" box, or with four others. The team divided the replies into various categories. "Helpful" responses said simply that yes, the Technion does have a biology faculty. "Very helpful" responses included extra information, such as useful phone numbers.
But "unhelpful responses" included the brusque "Find the Web page and look yourself!" Some just tried chatting "her" up with some very personal questions.
While half the recipients failed to respond to the email if they saw four others were on the address list, this figure fell to 36 per cent for single recipients. And almost a third of the single recipients sent back very helpful responses, compared to just 16 per cent of the multiple recipients."
Full Article:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992557 |
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Radeon 9700 -- the low-down |
7/22/2002 |
How ATI nicked King Nvidia's crown
"The board is built with 10-layer PCB (Printed Circuit Board) which makes it expensive to produce, and many of ATI's partners were unhappy about this decision. But we reckon that ATI haven’t got much choice about this, since this chip was already pushing its limits. Still, ATI partners could make some money if any of them shipped this card in September time. Usually, boards are made with 6 to 8 PCBs but we might add that 10 layers could mean more stability for the board. This represents ATI's reference design and ATI welcomes its partners to do cards that are not completely reference designed, but still we don’t see this happening in near future. This is indeed an expensive process.
ATI has been quiet about the external power connector that is present on this card, since AGP has not enough power to make this large chip run as it should, but still we don’t see any problem with this decision. We learned at the presentation that the card does work even without external power but you will need state-of-the-art power supply and state-of-the-art motherboard, and you could have problems with most of the power supplies and motherboards on the market. To remove possible problems, ATI simply provided more power to this chip.
If you are not Anand, you should be able to bet on seeing this board for reviews in mid August when we will be able to tell you more about it.
Final boards should be able to get you up to 16000 in 3DMark on a P4 2.53 GHz and it will be the fastest card at least until Nvidia ships the NV30 which could return the crown to Nvidia once again.
Congratulations go to ATI for finally being able to beat Nvidia in speed and performance, at least for a while..."
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4547 |
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AMD Intel "benchmark comparison unfair" |
7/22/2002 |
AMD w/ nForce 2 Trashes Intel w/ 845G:
"The benchmarks and system specs we published over the weekend comparing Intel and AMD processors using integrated chipsets are clearly unfair, as Nils Dahl has pointed out at Van's Hardware Pages.
But he also points to the reason why the benchmark is unfair, and that's because the AMD chips use the Nforce chipset, which appear to trash the 845G big time.
Which has only got to be good news for Nvidia, AMD's favourite SNAP partner, we reckon."
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4543
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Russian firm points out new Adobe flaw |
7/22/2002 |
Thumbing its nose at the company that landed one of its employees in jail, ElcomSoft is pointing out new flaws in Adobe Systems' eBook software.
The flaws could allow someone to check out every copy of every book in Adobe's new electronic library for an unlimited amount of time by changing the values in the loan form. However, the bugs were discovered on an Adobe test Web site that demonstrates how the software could be used to set up a lending library--not an actual site that offers books--and ElcomSoft gives information about how to fix the flaws.
The Russian software company reported the problem to the Bugtraq list without first telling Adobe about it because, it said, the company has been reluctant to fix other flaws.
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-945460.html?tag=fd_top
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Mac vs. PC Round II |
7/22/2002 |
After this article was released Mac users went back to hiding behind their "real people" ads.
"As you see, the dual Athlon is still the fastest PC we've tested, but the single Intel P4 2.53 GHz machine runs a close second, and even beats the dual Athlon on some of the tests. And, as expected, the Mac dual 1GHz G4 could not even come close to keeping up with these two PCs. Even though the P4 machine has only a single processor, it was easy for it to leave the dual-processor Mac far behind."
Full Article:
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2002/07_jul/features/cw_macvspc2.htm |
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Questioning Deep-Linking |
7/22/2002 |
What's deep linking? The topic sounds vaguely naughty and has, indeed, spawned a series of dirty battles. The term refers to the practice of linking to interior pages within a Web site rather than to the home page. So, for example, if I want to refer to a story about deep linking from Wired News, I'd use this link rather than www.wired.com. Seems obvious enough, right? And I'd be seriously understating the case if I called deep linking common. Rather, the ability to deep link actually creates the digital strands that spun the World Wide Web itself.
Deep-six the deep links
But those strands might turn out to be more fragile than you think. A growing number of commercial Web sites object to deep linking. They say that it robs them of advertising opportunities, tricks consumers who might not realize that they've been taken to a new page, and even violates copyright laws by potentially allowing linkers to reproduce copy on their Web sites.
Full Article:
http://www.cnet.com/software/0-8888-8-20161097-1.html?tag=sd |
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Yamaha CRW-F1 44/24/44 CD-RW with Hologram Burning |
7/22/2002 |
"With the CRW-F1, Yamaha has raised the bar once again. With technologies like DiscT@2, SafeBurn and Advanced Audio Master, it's easy to see why Yamaha is considered to be one of the leaders in the optical storage industry.
While I was very impressed with the features found on the CRW-F1, its performance came up a little short. After being bombarded for weeks by press releases touting the CRW-F1 as the ultimate recorder, I really expected the drive to blow me away like the Yamaha's 24x writer did. Instead, the drive had a very mixed performance. For example, while the drive's CD read and DAE speeds are rated at 44x, it had a hard time reaching these speeds in our tests. The drive's seek times were also higher than what we've seen on a lot of other 40x and 48x writers.
When it comes to features, the CRW-F1 stands alone as one of the most feature packed writers I've tested."
Full Review:
http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=135 |
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AMDMB.com Summer 2002 Server Upgrade |
7/21/2002 |
"Sometimes the growth and popularity of a site can be its downfall. In other cases, the growth and popularity of a site are its strengths and driving forces. Amdmb.com falls into that second category.
Over the past 2 years, Amdmb.com has grown beyond my wildest imaginations to become my full time job and my full time love. While attending college on the side, Amdmb.com is my work and hobby, occupying every bit of time that is not needed elsewhere. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Going from a small site with only a couple hundred thousand page views a month to a huge site with a multi-gigabyte database with millions of visitors a month has been a cause for celebration, as well as spurred a need for constant upgrades.
With every growth spurt, I have been there to upgrade the servers that host the site, and this most recent upgrade was very similar, but on a much grander scale. If you have been a member of the AMDForums for any amount of time, you might have seen some messages and errors that are very unpopular among readers. Server time outs and busy messages were becoming common during the busy periods of the evening, caused by article and forum readers. Warren and myself had been tweaking the server setup for over 6 months now, and every time a new problem came up, we fixed it. And when the servers needed more power, we could siphon it out somehow. Not so this time. The machines were tapped out."
Full Article:
http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=194&PageID=1 |
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Abit outsources low-end mobo products to ECS |
7/21/2002 |
"Abit Computer has joined other companies in outsourcing to Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), in a move that illustrates the heightened cost pressure second-tier board makers face in fighting their bigger, cost-efficient rivals.
A niche maker of powerful motherboards, Abit has been expanding its product portfolio this year, seeing its entry into the low-end segment a key driver for its 65% shipment growth target to 3.3 million units for the year. However, its May launch of new lines, including boards based on the SiS645 chipset from Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) and 845GL chipset from Intel, was hard hit by price slashing in the segment.
To cut costs, Abit decided in June to source all of its low-end boards to ECS.
A company executive told DigiTimes that although demand for Abit’s new lines is still tentative in its target markets in the US and developing countries, it will grow substantially in the fourth quarter. Shipments then will likely reach 100,000 units a month, he said."
Some are predicting that this will spell doom for ABIT while others think that ABIT's engineering may help bring ECS and its low end products out of the gutter. |
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Intel Chipset Gaming Stability Issues |
7/21/2002 |
"Intel® Extreme Graphics Gaming Guide
Game Compatibility List (A-E)
Issue Description
This column lists Intel® graphics controllers with known issues with the associated game title. Each graphics controller listed is a link to the issue.
No known problems
This column lists Intel graphics controllers that have not had any issues with the associated game title."
It's a huge list so go check it out for yourself.
Full List:
http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/gaming/gc1.htm |
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FM station: Copyright fees killed Webcast |
7/21/2002 |
"The first commercial radio station to stream its programming live via the Web has quit, making good on threats that it would have to pull its Webcasts in the face of royalty fees.
Watsonville, Calif.-based KPIG called the decision to stop Webcasts of its FM broadcasts Thursday "a sad day in the cybersty" but said it hoped the decision was only temporary. The Web site will continue to offer copies of live recordings made in the station's studio and still will post a real-time playlist of songs.
Bill Goldsmith, KPIG's Web consultant, said the fees cost the station about $3,000 a month--too much to support an Internet operation that barely breaks even. "It's ridiculous," Goldsmith said of the fees. "There's not a single Webcaster online right now who's making enough to pay those fees."
However, Goldsmith said he hopes successful negotiations with copyright owners will have the Webcast up and running again within 30 days."
Full Article:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-945196.html
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Earthlink wins $24 million from spammer |
7/21/2002 |
"EarthLink has won more than $24 million in a claim against a spammer, but the real victory is in preventing members from being spammed, the company says.
EarthLink filed its claim against Tennessee resident K.C. "Khan" Smith in August 2001, accusing him of violating federal and state Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statutes, the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984, the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 and various state laws.
The Internet service provider moved for summary judgment in a federal court, and the judge ruled in EarthLink's favor after Khan failed to show up for the hearing or contest the claim.
"While we don't know if we'll recover any monetary damages, for us, the victory is in being able to take steps that help stop spam," EarthLink spokeswoman Carla Shaw said."
Earthlink then said that they would not be suing themselves for marketing practices that some would consider "spam." ;)
Full Article:
http://zdnet.com.com/2001-11-0.html?legacy=zdnn |
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HardOCP Delivers Scathing Review of BTMS Watercooling |
7/21/2002 |
"When given the opportunity to defend their product and explain the marketing claims made on their website and in their literature, we were only met with more marketing mumbo-jumbo. As I said earlier, I surprised by their response which was a direct contradiction to the product I was holding in my hands.
The average person reading the Blue Cooling website would be lead to believe that the BTMS is a professionally manufactured block designed under the strictest of standards to replace any water block on the market. In reality, the BTMS performed dead last in every category when compared to just a handful of the water blocks already on the market.
In closing, I ask you not to rely solely on my opinion that the BTMS is the worst water block that I have personally ever seen, because that is just one mans opinion. Instead I ask you to take a moment and scroll back through all the pictures and graphs you have seen here...not the text, just the pictures and graphs.
The reason I ask that is because you will then see a product by itself with only the performance data.....no opinions, no commentary, no reviewer input…just the product and the results. Then ask yourself, “Would I buy this?”.
-----
Review
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzI5 |
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Berlin Firm Helps Shape Computer Music Revolution |
7/21/2002 |
BERLIN (Reuters) - Michael Kurz clicks on a computer program and presses middle C on an adjacent keyboard. The computer races through millions of calculations and the sound of a B-3 organ pours out of nearby speakers.
Musicians in jazz, gospel and rock have long raved about the Hammond B-3 organ's distinctive sound but grumbled about dragging the 286-pound instrument to gigs -- if they could afford to buy it.
Technological advances now make it possible for computers to create the sounds of traditional instruments such as the B-3 at a fraction of the original cost. The Berlin firm Native Instruments is playing a leading role in this software musical revolution.
"What we are doing only became possible when computers became fast enough," said Kurz, who designed the firm's B4 software that simulates the B-3 sound. "Only in the last five to seven years did it become possible to do real-time processing."
Such advances mean that an up-to-date computer produces no noticeable delay between pushing a note and hearing the computer's creation -- which takes about four million calculations for a second of real-time swirling B-3 sound.
If your tastes run more toward the pulses of techno or the pop keyboard sounds of the 1980s, Native Instruments -- which says it is the largest firm in the software synthesis business -- makes software to simulate those sounds.
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Full Article
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=technologynews&StoryID=1228184 |
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Oracle's Ellison Says U.S. Should Centralize Data |
7/21/2002 |
DENVER (Reuters) - Larry Ellison, chief executive of Oracle Corp. on Friday renewed his campaign for a government-initiated database of U.S. medical and criminal records, the kind of sweeping and controversial project the No. 2 software vendor has offered to undertake before.
"There should be one system," Ellison told some 3,000 attendees at Colorado Gov. Bill Owens' third annual technology conference in Denver.
A unified system would be both cheaper and safer, eliminating many of the current problems in health care and criminal justice, he said.
For example, patients risk adverse drug reactions because one pharmacy that fills a prescription has no way of knowing another pharmacy might have provided a second drug that could make the patient sick if both were taken together.
"Government should take a lead in this so we can stop killing people," Ellison said.
Centralized database systems would also allow emergency medical personnel to better treat someone in an accident far from home and help police departments better track criminals, he said.
"You're saying 'What a threat to privacy,"' he said to an audience that seemed sometimes skeptical that such information could be responsibly entrusted to a single system.
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Full Article
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=technologynews&StoryID=1226492 |
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Football Team Fired for Playing Pool While Naked |
7/21/2002 |
DUBLIN (Reuters) - A Gaelic football team has been disbanded after players were caught on a hotel security camera playing pool naked during a late night drinking session.
County Roscommon's Gaelic Athletic Association said the drastic decision to sack the entire county side had been taken to restore the good name of the team after allegations of off-the-pitch misbehavior.
"We feel this is something we have to do for the good of Roscommon football. It's a fresh start," county board chairman Stephen Banahan was quoted as saying in Friday's edition of the Irish Sun newspaper.
In May, a Sunday tabloid carried pictures of Roscommon footballers playing pool in the nude in a Londonderry hotel after a friendly match against Donegal earlier in the season.
It was also claimed that one player roamed around the Northern Irish hotel in a pair of frilly lace knickers.
Two players made public apologies over the affair, but rumors of further bad behavior have dogged the team along with a poor summer season on the pitch.
Banahan said some of the stories were exaggerated, but added "Obviously there is truth in some of the rumors."
Members of the disbanded team have been told they must own up to any misbehavior and sign a strict code of conduct to stand a chance of being picked again for the western county.
Gaelic football, a hybrid of soccer and rugby, is Ireland's national game.
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Full Article
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1224696 |
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China beats Microsoft "Office", OS monopoly |
7/21/2002 |
The People's Daily said a consortium of Chinese software developers will create a Win98 like operating system and "office" software that will be compatible with Microsoft's Office suite.
The programs, called Yangfan and Qihang, which the paper says means "to set sail", will be ready within a year or so, backed by the Beijing IT Industry Promotion Centre.
Eighteen companies and a number of academic institutions will work on the scheme, while the first desktop OS, called Yangfan 1.0, is already being installed in different government departments.
Last year Beijing council switched to RedFlag, a Chinese Linux variant.
But the goal with this cooperative project is to produce programs that are equivalent to Win98 in terms of useability, as well as having compatibility with Microsoft's Office 2000 and Word programs.
----
Full Article
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4525 |
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€urope ripped off by PC companies? |
7/21/2002 |
Last time we looked, one €uro was equal to US $1.00910 and on one day last week the European currency was worth more than the US dollar.
Why, then, do Europeans have to pay so much more for products, many of which are manufactured outside of the US anyway, or include components which come from goodness only where?
Maybe it's because we're suckers. This magazine has already pointed out that the good old tried and trusted £1 = $1 scam has operated here in Blighty for quite some time.
Indeed, when Microsoft launched its little Xbox in the UK, Vole UK attempted to tell the INQ that £299 was, for all intents and purposes, the same as $299, so re-valuing the pound at a stroke.
But here's some examples of how €uropeans are being ripped off as we speak.
Apple Store quotes the following for the up and coming iMac 17-incher for the following configuration as $1,999 in the US, but a staggering €2,638 (VAT included) in the Italian Apple Store.
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Full Article
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4536 |
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Downloading Songs Hurts Music Industry? |
7/21/2002 |
"Jayne Charneski over at Edison Research just passed me on the results of a recent survey they conducted. It confirms much of what we have seen in past surveys measuring the impact of Online music trading over the last few years. It's just the interpretation of that data I'm trying to figure out.
The team's results came up with the conclusion that three-fourths of 12-17-year-olds do not feel "there is anything morally wrong about downloading music for free off the Internet." They also found that the majority of these young consumers continue to buy CDs. End result, the record industry is missing the boat and thus missing opportunity.
But her interpretations of some her own data struck me as curious, an interpretation that I picked up in the title of the email she sent me "10.1% of 12-17s are actively downloading/not purchasing music". This implied to me this was a negative stat. Doesn't this also read 90% of teens are both downloading and buying?"
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Full Article
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2002/teentrade.html
Survey Findings
http://www.edisonresearch.com/RecordBuyersIIPress.htm |
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AMD makes all out attack on Intel P4 Celeron |
7/21/2002 |
A document AMD is showing its customers describes Intel's new Celeron designs as being "all bark and no bite".
The piece, however, refers to the 1.8GHz and the 1.7GHz Pentium 4 Celerons that use the Willamette core and have 128K of level two cache.
AMD claims that most 1.7GGHz and 1.8GHz Celerons using this design come with an i845G chipset and that this combination "struggles to run some of today's latest entertainment applications".
It quotes PC World for the "bark and no bite" quotation, has Keven Krewell at Microdesign resources saying: "I think Intel's handling of [this] Celeron represents a complete disregard for its customers" and quotes Van's HW as saying: "Alas, Intel has delivered another spineless processor to the uninformed masses".
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4513 |
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11 Days of Non-Stop Gaming |
7/21/2002 |
CampZone 2 is a large outdoor computer-event in The Netherlands, organized by GameParty. A field near Six Flags Holland (Biddinghuizen) will be transformed into a high-tech camping with full service, including a high-speed 100Mbit network and Internet access for everyone. During 11 days, CampZone will be the home for up to 1200 computer enthousiasts.
The main focus of the event is multiplayer gaming, but there will also be other activities, such as paintball. Based on the huge succes of CampZone 2001, the participations will find the second edition of CampZone to be their best vacation this season.
----
Quite interesting, though you might have some difficulty reading the English translated page..."As you can see, the world of consoles will be presented very well. This gives you one reason less not visiting CampZone 2"
Nonetheless, $141.83 for 11 days of gaming and camping (minus food, airfare, and assundries) is a good deal.
http://en.campzone.nl/ |
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More Radeon 9700 Goodness |
7/19/2002 |
I hadn't the time to read all of the Radeon articles on HardOCP earlier but after reading them now think they are worth your time.
The one you'd most likely want to jump straight into is:
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzMw
Then you'd want to find out about the 9000 and how it outperforms the GeForce 4 MX (but not the Radeon 8500 AIW 128mb :/)
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzI4
And if you want to tackle the White Paper you may do so here:
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzI3
So how do things stand now? The new GeForce series based on the NV30 core is expected in 3 months (Mid-October to November for those without calendars). This will coincide with ATi's release of the Radeon 10,000 which will help ATi stay competitive with nVIDIA's chips if they're as fast as everyone says they're going to be.
Until then, anticipate some UT2K3 action soon. Keep yourself busy by playing some Neverwinter Nights / Warcraft III / Counter-Strike / Britney's Dance Beat ;) and start dusting off your computer components so that they can be replaced by the upcoming KT400 / nForce 2 motherboards with Serial ATA and 8X AGP. Then again, maybe you should stop playing games and start saving up money for all of this! |
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Electric Sheep |
7/18/2002 |
I am well aware that there hasn't been a lot of new content on our part (reviews, guides, etc.) in the past few weeks. This can be attributed to:
1) lack of a digital camera (had to return mine to the university for the summer)
2) summer school (midterms every week! yay)
3) moving to san francisco for the next term
I have three weeks off starting July 25th, 2002. I hope to implement a new site design and get some proper guides and reviews up. I also need to update some of the old reviews with certain "complications" that have come to my attention over the past month. (Razer Boomslang updates, Kyro II fan problems, etc.)
Several mouse pad companies have been generous enough to get me going on a nice little mousepad round-up. I've had the ATC-210 collecting dust for the past 8 months so I'm sure I've broken that in enough to write a decent review. Hmm.. what else. Rob is working on some trackball reviews since that's what he likes best (I personally can't stand the things.. to each his own).
So get on my butt if I don't get these articles out. I'm sure you'll enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy countless hours of writing grammatically incompetent articles. ;)
3DChipset calls theInquirer a bunch of queer balls. I'm not sure how they've become the foremost expert in "queerism" but I think they are being a tad bit juvenile by saying theInquirer isn't legit. You can read more about that here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4511 |
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A Sneak Peek at NASA's Plans for Exploring Mars and Beyond |
7/18/2002 |
Putting that turmoil aside, the space agency has quietly scripted a step-by-step plan to send astronauts to locales between Earth, the Moon and the Sun, to Mars and the asteroids, and even farther -- to the moons of several outer planets.
This suite of far-out space missions beyond Earth's orbit was assembled as a NASA strategic plan for the Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS).
It is clear, however, until the ISS effort is under cost and managerial control, NASA's escape velocity vision will remain in limbo. Furthermore, the space agency's new chief, Sean O'Keefe, sees as priority one getting the ISS effort under control. But as part of this futuristic plan, new artwork was created specifically to highlight what NASA officials consider as viable steps in human space exploration.
Beyond Earth's orbit, 100-day class missions would send crews on missions to Earth-moon and Earth-Sun "libration points." Also known as L-points, these locales are where gravitational forces balance.
At these outposts, humans could maintain revolutionary new telescopes and build up the hardware to further explore the lunar surface.
Extending the human experience even farther, 500 to 1,000-day missions would integrate human and robotic abilities to explore the Mars system, as well as asteroids.
Full Article:
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/nasa_plans_020718a.html
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ATi Radeon 9700 (R300) |
7/18/2002 |
Anandtech currently is the only one offering benchmarks of the Radeon 9700 (although the white papers are being used by many sites). However, ATi would not let them release official frame rates and made them use percentages instead. I really don't see the point in this since anyone with a calculator can just convert the percentages into pretty precise FPS values.
Feel free to check out the comprehensive article at Anandtech.com
Anandtech Review:
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1656&p=1 |
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A bunch of nForce boards and scrambled Japanese characters |
7/18/2002 |
I could download the Japanese language support pack, but not knowing what it says is 50% of the fun.
A lot of nForce board shots. I was hoping that somehow the new nForce chipset would be coming in a Serial ATA variant but this doesn't appear to be true in this batch. I realize that the new drives will probably be including bundled Serial ATA Adapter cards but what's the fun in taking up an extra PCI slot? :/
Check out Akiba PC Watch for all of the nice info:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/pc/docs/2002/0717/nvidia.htm |
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Yahoo Mail puts words in your mouth |
7/18/2002 |
To protect users from malicious code, Yahoo uses an automated filter to swap out a handful of words such as "mocha" that pertain to Web code known as JavaScript.
Mocha" is one of those special commands that can be run from Web-enhanced e-mail--typing "mocha:" into the location bar of the Netscape browser will open up a screen with a display area and a text box underneath, in which commands can be entered.
A malicious hacker could, for example, use the command line to run a program to change a person's password without their knowledge.
To prevent such attacks on its customers, Yahoo searches and automatically replaces key terms--a step that is not disclosed to users and that goes beyond what other companies are doing.
While acknowledging that it searches and replaces certain words, a Yahoo representative would not say when it started the practice.
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-944315.html?tag=fd_ots |
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Ask Jeeves partners with Google |
7/18/2002 |
Internet search company Ask Jeeves on Thursday said it partnered with the popular search engine Google to provide advertisements on its Web site, replacing a partnership with advertising company Overture Services.
The company said the new partnership will produce more than $100 million in revenue, which will be shared over three years between the two companies. Specific terms of the revenue sharing agreement were not disclosed.
In a statement, Ask Jeeves Chief Executive Skip Battle said its decision to drop Overture and sign on with Google was purely financial, with Google offering better terms.
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-944938.html?tag=fd_top |
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Why Countries Make Sites Unseen |
7/18/2002 |
If you're reading this from Saudi Arabia, don't bother clicking here. Here. Or here.
The Saudi government is keeping its subjects from viewing sites about drugs, women and rock and roll, according to a new Harvard Law School study.
This pattern of censorship -- blocking the "Women in American History" section of the online Encyclopedia Britannica while allowing access to CNN.com -- can serve as a kind of Rorschach test of tyranny, speaking volumes about the psychology of a government.
"You can get a sense of what worries a regime by what sites they block," said Carin Karlekar, a senior researcher at Freedom House, a pro-democracy group. "In Saudi Arabia, the government's more interested in clamping down on personal freedom than on political freedom. But in China, they're more concerned about political subversion than personal morality, so news sites are the ones that are censored."
Full Article:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,53933,00.html
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Israel Blocks Palestinian ISP |
7/18/2002 |
For hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, getting to work, school or the market has been virtually impossible since Israel's latest anti-terror campaign began. Now, they won't be able to get online, either.
Early Monday morning, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops took over the offices of Palnet, the leading Palestinian Internet service provider, shutting down the firm's operations. The move -- part of Israel's 3-week-old "Operation Determined Path," which has kept seven of the eight major Palestinian cities under strict curfew -- reduced Internet access to a trickle in the West Bank and Gaza.
"The Israeli army stormed the office building where six (Palnet) employees were believed to be staying in order to maintain Internet service during this difficult time," the Palestinian pro-democracy group Miftah said in a statement. "Explosions were heard and the fate of the six (Palnet) employees is unknown.
IDF sources verified that troops were operating in the Palnet building, but could not confirm any details of the operation.
Full Article:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,53873,00.html |
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Tech activists protest anti-copying |
7/18/2002 |
"Enthusiasts of free software disrupted a Commerce Department meeting Wednesday, insisting on their right to debate the entertainment industry over anti-copying technologies.
About a dozen vocal tech activists in the audience challenged speakers, including Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), who equated piracy with theft and applauded digital rights management.
"I'm going to accord you the utmost respect," Valenti said. "I'm going to listen to you, but let me finish...The first thing we ought to exhibit is good manners."
The activists, mostly from New Yorkers for Fair Use, interrupted Valenti with hoots and jeers from the back of the room until the former presidential aide offered them the chance to reply."
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-944668.html?tag=fd_top |
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Apple Launches PC Friendly iPod |
7/18/2002 |
New Features:
PC Support
Good news for the millions of Windows users who own PCs with built-in FireWire (also known as i.LINK and IEEE1394): In response to insistent demand from PC users, the world’s best MP3 player now does Windows. iPod fully integrated with the award-winning PC media player — MUSICMATCH Jukebox Plus. So every song you add or playlist you create will automatically transfer to your iPod.
Wired remote control
The 10GB and 20GB models come with a wired remote control that lets you fast-forward or rewind a track, play, pause and adjust volume — again, using just one hand.
New iPod headphones
Headphones are smaller in size, with new Neodynamim transducer magnets for enhanced bass response, smoother midrange transitions, and accurate high-end reproduction.
FireWire port cover
A built-in cover for the FireWire port on the 10GB and 20GB models protects your iPod from dirt and pollutants.
Carrying case with belt clip
The 10GB and 20GB models include an elegant carrying case with belt clip that protects your iPod from the elements. Clip it to your belt, purse or backpack for hands-free operation.
Calendar
Stay up to date and be on time: Now you can download your calendar and schedule to iPod and use it as a portable personal organizer.
Clock
Always know what time it is with the new built-in digital clock.
Offical Website:
http://www.apple.com/ipod/ |
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Today's News |
7/18/2002 |
Not that I need to make excuses, but, today has been rather busy.
From the looks of things today is ALL about the new Radeon. Let's see if we can muster up some other relevant news and information that don't focus solely on the 9000 and 9700 launch.
Here we go.. |
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AMD Hammer: DDR II Explained |
7/17/2002 |
"Advanced Micro Devices tipped the memory options available to its Hammer processor on Tuesday, while addressing one of the perceived limitations of the architecture.
Both versions of the AMD Opteron products—the "Clawhammer", designed for PC desktops, and the "Sledgehammer", designed for full-featured servers—contain an integrated hardwired memory controller.
Some have suspected that the hardwired controller could prove to be Hammer's Achille heel, as tying the processor to a specific memory might effectively prevent the company from refreshing the product line on a timely basis. Rearchitecting the processor would require expensive reinvestment, the reasoning has gone.
However, AMD officials have said privately that the integrated memory controller may be turned off to allow it to use the memory controller of the chipset, and executives at AMD confirmed that fact on Tuesday. In addition, executives revealed the memory controllers of the first Hammer products.
The first Hammer chips will include a memory controller that will allow up to DDR-333 memories to be used, according to Charles Mitchell, a strategic marketing manager at AMD, Sunnyvale, Calif. The next memory controller will support DDR-II, specifically the DDR II-400 speed grade. Mitchell said the switch will likely take place in 2004.
In an interview, Wayne Meretsky, a manager for AMD's software R&D and an AMD fellow, said that designers can indeed turn off the memory controller, allowing the chipset to take over. The timing of the memory transitions will follow the industry. "We plan to support the memory roadmap as defined by JEDEC," Meretsky said.
In addition, Meretsky also said SuSE AG, AMD's development partner for Linux, should have a stable 64-bit beta, complete with "standard" applications, for third-party testing by mid-August. By the first quarter of 2003 a "professional" version should be released, followed by an enterprise version in the third quarter, he said."
Full Article:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,386094,00.asp |
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ATI Radeon 9000 and 9700 To Be Officially Announced Tonight |
7/17/2002 |
ATi is set to launch it's new lineup later today. The two new chipsets based on the R250 and R300 core are rumoured to be labeled as the Radeon 9000 and the Radeon 9700. An improved video card using the R300 core will follow within the next several months; it has been dubbed the Radeon 10,000. I'm sure we can expect many popular variants of these cards including ATi's very popular "All In Wonder" Series.
HardOCP reported yesterday that we might not be seeing these video cards in retail stores until August 18th, 2002.
The ATi 9000 is rumoured to be $149.99 for the 64mb variant whilst the ATi 9700 will most likely be competitively priced with nVIDIA's GeForce 4 Titanium lineup at $350-450 USD.
Stay Tuned to ATi.com for Official Launch Information:
http://www.ati.com |
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How Miniature Radiation Detectors Will Keep Astronauts Safe in Deep Space |
7/17/2002 |
There's no doubt that space travel is a risky business. Even in low Earth orbit, today's astronauts face potential mechanical failure and the mental strain of isolation. However, the future of space exploration lies beyond Earth's protective magnetosphere, where an even bigger threat lurks in the form of heavy ion radiation.
In just one day of interstellar space travel, for example, an astronaut will face radiation levels equal to a year's worth of incidental radiation on Earth. This radiation can cause DNA to mutate and cells to die.
To battle this invisible threat, NASA and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded $11 million to seven United States' universities this winter for the development of nano-scale biomedical technologies that detect, diagnose and battle radiation exposure, cancer, and other diseases at the cellular level.
Multiple dendrimers will create a multifunctioning "tectodendrimer". In the future, several specialized dendrimers will combine to detect, fight, diagnose, and report on radiation damage and disease. The Baker lab at the University of Michigan has built the reporting component using fluorescence resonance energy transfer. Click to enlarge.
The scale of nanotech. One nanometer is a billionth of a meter long and dendrimer macromolecules are just 5 nanometers wide. Smaller than viral and microbial agents, dendrimers fit easily inside white blood cells. Click to enlarge.
The most basic dendrimer structure is built on a core molecule of ammonia which binds acrylic acid on each of its three hydrogen atoms. Then the acrylic acid binds another layer of ammonia molecules. The layering can continue indefinitely, but a consistent and specific three dimensional structure is achieved by the fifth layer. Click to enlarge.
"You can view this as a whole new realm of diagnostic agents that you have inside, reporting on you. It's a lot like Star Trek," said James Baker, the lead researcher at the University of Michigan, whose team was awarded nearly a quarter of the funding from NASA and the NCI.
Full Article:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/radiation_nanobots_020717.html |
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Graphics chips outpacing Moore's Law |
7/17/2002 |
"Graphics processors aimed at the PC for the last five years have been following an accelerated version of Moore's Law, doubling performance every six months instead of every 18-to-24 months for their counterparts, a key Nvidia Corp. official told EBN Tuesday.
Dan Vivoli, vice president of marketing for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based graphics chip firm, interviewed at the Platform Conference here, said he thought the triple-speed graphics Moore's Law "will continue into the foreseeable future."
Graphics processors don't use die shrinks to drive performance, but put more functions and capability on the new die which remains the same size as before, he said. "We can put more algorithms on the die and drive more pixels in parallel, increasing performance dramatically," he added.
Electronic game consoles, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox which Nvidia supplies with graphics and I/O processors, are at the opposite technology scale, upgrading only every four to five years, Vivoli explained. "For this reason, the PC will never be replaced by consoles as gaming platforms," he predicted."
Full Article:
http://www.ebnews.com/story/OEG20020716S0051
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DirectX 8.1 Programs May Stop Working on Computers with AMD Processors |
7/17/2002 |
SYMPTOMS
On computers with an AMD processor, programs that use Microsoft DirectX 8.1 may quit without displaying an error message. The same programs work correctly on computers with Intel processors.
CAUSE
The DrawIndexedPrimitive function stops working without displaying an error or debug message. This occurs because of a code error in the AMD-specific optimized code. This code error may lead to heap corruption.
RESOLUTION
A supported fix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that is described in this article. Only apply it to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This fix may receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, Microsoft recommends that you wait for the next Windows XP service pack that contains this fix.
To resolve this problem immediately, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the fix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services phone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;CNTACTMS
Support Web Page:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q321178 |
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Radio Stations Appeal Internet Royalty Decision |
7/17/2002 |
"Radio stations have asked a federal appeals court to rule that they do not have to pay musicians and recording companies when they play music on the Internet because they do not pay royalties for regular, over-the-air broadcasts.
In a motion filed late Monday, a group of radio stations said a federal court in Philadelphia and the U.S. Copyright Office had misinterpreted the law when they said that radio stations had to pay musicians and recording companies when they "stream" their songs over the Internet.
The Copyright Office established a rate of 0.07 cents per listener per song in June, which means that Internet-only "Webcasters" and broadcast giants like Clear Channel Communications Inc. would be on the hook for 70 cents for each song played to an audience of 1,000 listeners.
The rate was decried as onerous by radio stations and Webcasters, many of whom said they would be forced to shut their doors.
Webcasters did not participate in the appeal of the August 2001 decision, which was filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania."
Full Article:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=582&ncid=582&e=3&u=/nm/20020716/
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Microsoft Revamps MSN Browser, but No Longer Free |
7/17/2002 |
"Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday it will launch later this year a new version of its consumer-friendly MSN Web browser and for the first time charge users who don't also subscribe to its Internet access services.
The beefed-up browser, called MSN 8, is the latest consumer-oriented product to be unveiled by the software giant this week as it prepares to launch a series of new products this year aimed at extending its reach beyond the desk and personal computer.
Microsoft said the new browser would ship with a sleek new design and an array of features that make it easier for users to manage e-mail, protect their PCs from viruses, handle digital photos and browse the Web.
It said it was the most fundamental revamp ever for its MSN set of services, which also includes Internet access and a Web portal.
In a departure from previous practice, Microsoft said it would offer MSN 8 as a separate subscription for users who don't already use MSN Internet access services. The company introduced the MSN browser as an alternative to its dominant Internet Explorer software, which will remain free."
Full Article:
http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=L3PT0ZECASBLSCRBAEZSFEY? |
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Microsoft polishes Windows 2000 fixes |
7/17/2002 |
"Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on the third collection of Windows 2000 bug fixes, which is nearly ready for release after a protracted period of testing, sources said.
The update, Windows 2000 Service Pack 3, contains vital security updates and hundreds of fixes to bugs plaguing the operating system that Microsoft released in February 2000. Service Pack 3 could be important for many businesses, as not all of the included security fixes are available as separate downloads.
But some businesses won't find this to be a light download, which weighs in for some installations at more than 150MB, according to the update's "Read Me" file. Service Pack 3 can be applied to Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2000 with Server Appliance Kit. The size of the update could change depending on the version of Windows and type of installation, such as single computer or network.
Microsoft would not give a specific release date for the service pack. "We remain on track to release this summer and we will ship when it is ready," said Jim Cullinan, Windows lead product manager."
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-944270.html?tag=fd_top
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Asus to Manufacture Xabre 400 Video Cards |
7/17/2002 |
"Wow, what a company is going to join the team of SiS Xabre 400 supporters! This is ASUS, the major partner of NVIDIA Company, which has always been very nervous about the loyalty of its partners. You may remember, that there used to be some rumors about ASUS planning to make ATI based graphics cards, however, very soon they were all ruined by the official announcement made by the company’s chairman of the board of directors. NVIDIA might have been really nervous then.
Of course, I believe that ASUS nevertheless manufactured the cards, though not to be sold under their company brand name but according to a certain contract, but there had been so much stir around it then! :) And as for SiS, NVIDIA doesn’t seem to regard it as a serious competitor that is why they close their eyes to ASUS’ partnership with this company. In the meanwhile, at least…
However, the introduction to the actual story seems to have turned out too long :) let’s have a closer look at the card itself (the pictures are available here). The card is marked as X4000 (as usual, ASUS uses 4-digit model numbers).
The most remarkable thing about the card is the memory chips. Firstly, they are 64mbit (4Mx16, 3.3V), so that they had to use 8 of them to reach the desired 64MB. Secondly, they are 3.3ns ones, which indicates that they support 600MHz DDR frequency. As is known, only Xabre 600 is supposed to have fast memory like that (the chip is due within this quarter). And Xabre 400 based cards should come with 4ns memory working at 500MHz DDR by default. So, this decision of ASUS’ is really outstanding and pleasing at the same time."
Full Article:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/#1026875073 |
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OpenGL 1.4 Introduced |
7/16/2002 |
The OpenGL Architecture Review Board has released OpenGL 1.4, the next addition to the OpenGL specification.
New features include: depth textures and shadow textures, enabling real-time shadows and related image-based rendering techniques; a vertex programming framework, setting the stage for user-defined geometry, lighting and shading programs and enabling high-level general-purpose shading languages; automatic texture mipmap generation; and smaller enhancements including multiple draw arrays, window raster positioning, and user defined fog coordinates and secondary colors, point parameters, level-of-detail biases, and others.
Some have suspected Microsoft may be asserting patent claims to sidetrack OpenGL 2.0, the work being done on the next major revision of OpenGL.
Full Article:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,382714,00.asp |
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AMD pursues Intel antitrust case to €urope |
7/16/2002 |
"AMD has documents, Chipzilla could face $2.7 billion fine
AMD has apparently asked US courts, successfully, to release confidential documents to European antitrust authorities.
Earlier this year, a court turned down that request but at appeal AMD was granted that right.
And although Intel has settled all antitrust matters in the US, AMD looks set to revive the allegations in front of European trade commissioners.
AMD wants antitrust authorities to investigate whether Intel Inside rebates and tied in buying deals cut it out of the market.
The outstanding papers are as a result of an Alabama dispute between Intergraph and Intel, settled in April with Chipzilla tipping the smaller company $300 million."
Full Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4454
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ECS Responds to SiS Xabre Transparency Cheat |
7/16/2002 |
1.) 3D Wizard is the common software package that comes with SiS video cards. ECS did not develop the software, and really had no idea that 3D Wizard had such an option. We concentrate mostly on the drivers themselves and not on the extra software utilities that come with the card. We figure most users would use better hardware accelerating utilities anyways.
2.) The driver package that was sent to the review site are not complete. And most were engineering samples not meant for public use.
3.) ECS has heard the demands of the public and from my understanding will not release the transperancy option with the sale of the video card.
4.) I tested the transperency option to see if it would really work, and I was unable to see through the walls. (I don't know if I had the right setup? Or if there is something else you need to enable besides the transperency option, but it didn't work.) I was able to see the wireframes when playing Warcraft 3, but I was unable to see through any walls when playing through Valve's Ricochet application for Counterstrike.
5.) ECS does not support cheating in internet multiplayer games. I was once a former counterstrike player myself, but have since stopped due to cheating issues with the game. So I can completely understand your frustration.
I hope this will clarify ECS's stance on this topic.
Source:
http://www.hardocp.com |
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nVIDIA nForce 2 Writeup at THG |
7/16/2002 |
The article at Tom's Hardware Guide addresses the features and specifications of the new nVIDIA nForce 2 motherboard that we will be seeing very soon. It does not, however, do any benchmarks since all of that information is still under NDA. If you're interested in knowing what the nForce 2 has in store for the world then check the article out. Even if it is simply regurgitated info from nVIDIA and from Tom's Hardware Guide ;)
Full Article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboard/02q3/020716/index.html |
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nVIDIA K8 Crush Displayed at the Platform Conference |
7/16/2002 |
"The story says – and we're relying somewhat on Babelfish here – that the motherboard is probably a dummy, while we won't see shipments until the end of the year.
The site has a number of diagrams and pictures that make the whole thing clearer.
The article says that Crush K8 is being accelerated to keep up with other chipsets being produced by competitors Via and SIS.
There's pictures of the Crush K8 integrated chip, of a reference motherboard, and of a chip called Drew Henry, who seemed to be presiding over the entire Nvidia fest."
Full Inquirer Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4450
Original Akiba PC Watch Article (with pics):
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/pc/docs/2002/0716/kaigai01.htm |
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House Okays Life Sentence for Hackers, Tramples on your privacy. |
7/16/2002 |
Preparing the nation for future cyberattacks, the House voted Monday to increase penalties for computer crimes and make it easier for Internet service providers to disclose dangerous material to government agencies.
The legislation also states that immediate threats to national security should be included among emergency instances where law enforcement can tap into computer communications. It passed 385-3.
Many think of cybercrime as a form of vandalism, but ``it can devastate our businesses, economy or national infrastructure,'' said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the chief sponsor. ``A mouse can be just as dangerous as a bullet or a bomb.''
Some provisions broaden language in a far-reaching anti-terrorism bill signed into law last fall after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The bill exempts from civil or criminal liability Internet service providers who disclose communications to government offices in the good-faith belief in the existence of an emergency that poses danger of death or serious physical injury.
Electronic surveillance tools known as ``pen registers'' and ``trap and trace devices'' can be used for 48 hours while court authorization is sought if an immediate threat to national security exists or an attack is under way on protected computers. Such devices allow law enforcement to find the source or destination of computer communications without capturing the content.
The bill doubles to 20 years' imprisonment the maximum penalty for knowingly attempting to cause serious injury through a cyberattack. Attempts to cause death are punishable by up to life in prison.
Full Article:
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/main.html?SLUG=CYBERCRIME |
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Download illegal MP3's Go to Jail |
7/16/2002 |
"When the recording industry last month let slip plans to sue individuals who trade copyrighted songs on file-swapping services, Web surfers everywhere pulled down their MP3 collections in a frenzy of fear.
OK, not really. Despite the music industry's hopes, such threats have so far been met with a collective yawn in the file-swapping community, which has yet to see much damage in spite of repeated legal wrangling with the Recording Industry Association of America.
In the face of crackdowns on file-swapping services such as Napster and cease-and-desist letters to companies that allow employees to swap files, some free music junkies have become more determined than ever, turning to smaller and more obscure sites and services to grab their favorite tunes. Although it requires more effort, fans say, they can still get a song if they really want to.
So now, it appears, the music industry is preparing to loose its legal dogs on those wily listeners themselves. Two weeks ago, sources close to the record labels said lawsuits against individuals are being seriously considered in the fight against peer-to-peer piracy--a battle that until now has focused primarily on the companies that provide file-swapping software and services."
Full Article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-943881.html?tag=fd_lede
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Judge Rules on Web Pop-Up Ads |
7/16/2002 |
A California software company must stop delivering ads that pop up unauthorized when surfers visit the Web sites of several prominent media companies, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton in Alexandria, Va., issued the preliminary injunction Friday in a lawsuit that 12 media companies filed last month against Gator Corp. of Redwood City, Calif.
The plaintiffs, including parents of The Washington Post, The New York Times and USA Today, accused Gator of parasitic behavior.
No date has been set for trial.
Janet Collum, an attorney for Gator, said company officials were considering an appeal of the injunction, confident it will win the case at trial. "We believe strongly that the facts and the law are on our side," she said.
Full Article:
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/main.html?PACKAGEID=BIZadvertising&SLUG=ONLINE-AD-TUSSLE |
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