MAY NEWS
May 31st, 2002
Spencer writes, "Via GMSV comes this reference to a web page which is obviously maintained by a pyromaniacal madman. His method for starting a grill full of charcoal briquettes results in a lighting time of approximately three seconds. Cooking time has yet to be evaluated. (Please don't try this at home.)"
Soltek SL-75DRV5 KT333 Motherboard, Understanding Screen Size and Resolution, VIA P4PB P4X333 Review, GEM, A Mac-like GUI and OS for Low-end PC and more.
Nils Dahl sends us a recipe for fried rice.
May 28th, 2002
The extinct "Tasmanian Wolf," pictured to the left, is one step closer to prowling Down Under again. Australian scientists have successfully replicated the carnivorous marsupial's genes using DNA extracted from long-dead pups preserved in Ethanol. The researchers hope to resurrect the animal within ten years through cloning using the much smaller Tasmanian Devil as host.
Remarkably dog-like, the Tasmanian Wolf is a classic case of convergent evolution. Its stunningly similar skull is often contrasted with a wolf's in comparative anatomy classes. However, with its much wider gape the Thylacine could reportedly crack hunting dogs' skulls like walnuts although some scientists dispute this ability. The Thylacine is also called the "Tasmanian Tiger" because of its stripped coat.
Although doglike in appearance, the Thylacine was much more flexible and, in this regard, more catlike. From a standstill, the animal could acrobatically leap to perches at heights of about 9-10 feet.
The link is courtesy of John.
John Oram sends us this link and says, "There is more depth in this review than many before."
Nils Dahl on players and happenings in the computer industry.
Vantec EZ-Swap Removable HD Rack (Review), ECS iBuddie4, E3 Coverage, Nanya 256MB DDR333 Review and much more.
May 26th, 2002
Barge Knocks Out 500ft Span of I-40 Arkansas River Bridge in Oklahoma
At least a dozen vehicles were lost today when reportedly a barge struck a section of a heavily traveled interstate bridge in Oklahoma. Spanning the Arkansas River some 30-miles west of Fort Smith, Arkansas, this apparent accident follows on the heels of a similar incident last September involving the Queen Isabella Causeway connecting the south Texas mainland with South Padre Island. In addition to the still un-tallied loss of life, Interstate 40 is one of the most important east-west thoroughfares in the country and is expected to remain closed in this area for up to six months.
Lighted Fan Strobe!!, Thermalright SLK-600 Review, Powercooler Roundup Part II, Intel Pentium III SMP four ways faster than Xeon versions, Tyan Thunder K7X 760 MPX Motherboard Review and more.
The MHz Myth Continues
Mario writes, "Last Monday, PCWorld exposed Intel's P4 based 1.7 GHz Celeron for what it is; a debilitated all bark and no bite lap dog. And now the inquirer has revealed the latest episode of this ongoing saga. OEM manufacturers are upset because Intel's latest all whiz and no oomph P4 Xeon MP are thrashed by their lower frequency PIII counterparts in four-way SMP configurations. Intel is trying to foist the Netbust Xeon MP architecture onto these manufactures, but fortunately for them, they know they can't sell on second rate technology to their knowledgeable customers like they do to the uninformed masses. These manufacturers must also be really peeved to be asked to pay so much money for such inferior performance. At least with the new Celeron, Intel asks less dollars for less performance."
May 25th, 2002
Athlon XP 2200+ on Price Watch
Mario writes: Price Watch prices for AMD's top of the line Athlon XP desktop products fell sharply this weekend, no doubt in anticipation of the chipmaker's latest and greatest arriving soon. A search reveals the availability of an XP 2200+ product at $259. the inquirer reports that AMD will announce deep price cuts on Monday, and has also linked the availability of AMD's next Athlon product here, at $219.
Coventional Wisdom
Bill Brier sends us this. Points to ponder.
Keep your mouth shut while in a police station.
Stealing your teacher's car to go to the big dance isn't wise.
If a pistol-wielding homeowner foils your attempted burglary, move on!
Avoid answering the cell phone in the purse you just snatched.
Don't join someone in their bed unless invited.
Leave your stash at home when you go to court.
There really is no honor amongst thieves.
Brand name computers aren't always the best.
AMD to Increase Athlon MP's FSB
According to IT journal the inquirer, Advanced Micro Devices has June plans to introduce "much higher" Front Side Bus (FSB) speeds for its server and workstation-oriented Athlon MPs. Ratcheting up the FSB will have the effect of correspondingly boosting the maximum rate of flow for memory traffic.
Although the Athlon's FSB is designed to reach 400MHz (200MHz DDR), current chips operate only at 266MHz. However, enthusiasts have been finding success overclocking these CPUs to much higher speeds, causing speculation as to why AMD had not yet bumped up the FSB.
The new Athlon MP will be essentially a turbo-charged Athlon XP capable of reaching -- and perhaps even surpassing -- the Intel Pentium 4 in one of the Intel chip's strongest suits: bandwidth.
May 24th, 2002
Mario writes on comments made by nVidia president, Jen-Hsun Huang, during nVidia's Q1 revenue and earning results report.
Geoffrey writes, "
Clearly the Biometric tech being sold is not so effective. (And on a side point, what Novell is pushing is the back end infrastructure... I.e. You select the biometric, or smart card, or proximity card or whatever, that you want to use, because you think it works, and NMAS will work with it...)"
Phil writes, "Extreme Tech's top article is about how gummy bears can fool fingerprint detection devices. Notice the Novell ad at the top [pushing these devices]. Incidentally, the Novell ad was a bad link. Methinks this train is in for a short ride..."
Good-bye Slackware Linux, Hello OpenBSD, Thermalright SLK-600 (Review/Article), ABIT BD7-II Supports ASYNC DDR354 (DDR333), The Battle of Color - Sony Ericsson T68i vs Samsung SGH-T100 (1) and more.
May 23rd, 2002
the inquirer: More on Intel Email Scandal
Mike Magee has discovered that a senior Intel PR executive, "Dancing" Dan Francisco, is responsible for the recently uncovered Intel communiqués that have exposed some of the chipmaker's manipulative media strategies. In many ways the Intel emails seem as if they were lifted straight from the pages of a dark conspiracy novel involving a powerful global corporation gone mad by its thirst for domination.
In related news, a former Intel PR representative has confirmed our assertion that Intel "profiles" media hacks.
Loved your story about the Hotmail flame originating from Satan Clara.
As an ex-Intel PR bunny, I can confirm that, (at least in my day) INTC profiled all journos who were going to press events or had fixed one on ones with INTC execs. I had to write some myself - wish I'd kept them - but I don't think any of mine were as cringe-making as the stuff Mikey's been sent. I don't think Intel is unique in doing this, but it certainly looks as if some of its PR folks in the US have committed more to paper than was wise.
If I was Mark Hachman, I'd be reaching for my lawyers...
Indeed it is hard to imagine that Mr. Hachman's career has not been irreparably damaged from Intel's characterization of him as essentially its puppet.
Phil writes, "Looks like nano & DNA computing are making good progress. Popular Science has a great overview of the technologies involved, current status, and possible future."
Noise Control Hard Drive Cage Review, PC Athlon XP Unlocking Kit, Epox 8K3A Motherboard Review, VisionTek GeForce 4 Ti 4600 Review, Altec Lansing ADA890 Surround Kit Review and more.
May 22nd, 2002
Lo, The Lowly Transistor Morphs Again
Spencer writes, "The workhorse element of our microelectronics revolution, the transistor, is once again being developed in new directions which promise to make smaller, better, faster telecommunications more and more of a reality for our portable devices. A critical component of these small wireless systems is the final stage driver devices that actually create the RF signal. Currently, these are primarily gallium arsenide components but within two to three years we may be seeing more efficient gallium nitride transistors in common use. From Science Daily comes a link to this article at UCSB. By furthering the work of the legendary Shuji Nakamura (father of the blue and white LED and the blue laser diode) Professor Umesh Mishra and his colleagues have been developing both FET and bipolar transistors out of this difficult to master material. The article is both an excellent brief history and primer on the advantages of gallium nitride."
It's loaded today!
Review of Viewsonic VG191 LCD Panel
Dave Graham reviews his 19inch flat panel monitor.
Mario writes, "On Monday, VHJ reported on PCWorld's accurate 'avoid' assessment of Intel's all bark and no bite P4 based 1.7 GHz Celeron. Yesterday, PC Magazine, part of the Ziff Davis media group, gave it unjustified recognition by awarding a Gateway machine an Editors' Choice award. The uninformed reader who read those reviews is left none the wiser. This is what brings the IT media industry into disrepute. It seems that banner ads and revenue have more editorial influence than objective independent reporting. PC Magazine's assertion that they are "the independent guide to technology" is as good as Arthur Anderson saying that Enron's accounts are good. Those in the know will take PC Magazine's advice for what it is, those who aren't may make a poor purchasing decision."
Last Day to Vote
Today is the last day to vote for the VHJ Forum Logo. Click here to go to the Van's Hardware Forum Logo Contest page. Look at the choices and scroll to the top or bottom of that page for the voting link.
May 21st, 2002
How Intel Subverts Journalists
Van comments on Mike Magee's story and discusses a recent experience with an Intel email.
May 20th, 2002
Mario writes:
PCWorld has run its own tests on Intel's new P4 based 1.7 GHz Celeron. With only 128 KB of level two cache, it was not able to outperform comparable PIII based Celerons at 1.2 and 1.3 GHz. They say that this processor is all bark and no bite and recommend avoiding this chip. Analyst Kevin Krewell exposed Intel's intent, "The 128 KB of L2 cache is simply Intel crippling the processor's performance to make the latest Pentium 4 look better." Alas, Intel has delivered another spineless processor to the uninformed masses.
This intro by Intel is reminiscent of past marketing shenanigans where the consumer is asked to believe that more megahertz delivers more performance. Again, this has been proved to be patently wrong. Also, the original launch of the L2 cache-less Covington Celeron comes to mind. This suffered derision because its performance was so impotent. With AMD's decision to move Athlon into the value segment, Intel's latest offering looks to be on a fast track to an early end of life.
Nils Dahl talks about the importance of browsers.
P4 Cooler Overview Article, Broadxent DSL PCI 7430 Review, Dynatron High Performance Copper Heatsinks Review, EPoX 4G4A+ i845G, DFI NB73EA i845E, ASUS P4B533-E i845E, Gigabyte 8IEXP i845E, MSI 845E Max2BRU Intel 845E and more.
May 19th, 2002
There has been over forty great submissions to our logo contest and there are only a few days left to vote for your favorite! Voting will continue through Wednesday, May 22, Pacific Time. To vote, first view the forty-four outstanding logos here. Note the number that corresponds to your favorite entry then follow the link at the top or bottom of the page to the voting thread. To help ensure a fair contest, you must be a registered forum member to vote -- however, no personal info is necessary to register.
May 18th, 2002
Backup MyPC Review, Photos of Gigabyte 8IEXP i845E Board, MSI 845E Max2-BLR Mainboard, Bluetooth Review, NVIDIA Ti4200 and MSI Ti4400 Review, Gigabyte Maya AR64S-H Radeon 7500 Review and more.
May 17th, 2002
Enthusiast Website O'the Day: 4peeps.com
We will commence regularly spotlighting enthusiast site startups. We begin with 4peeps.com.
ExtremeTech Breaks AMD NDA
In a sickening news story today, the corporate imposter hardware site, ExtremeTech, published confidential information distributed by Advanced Micro Devices prior to the launch of the Thoroughbred next month. You can bet that the struggling Ziff-Davis Media web page was under Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) as was every other site. However, using the weak premise that they got "an email from the company forwarded by an anonymous source," ET blatantly violated it.
This is trash journalism. Breaking an NDA speaks volumes about the character of this floundering organization. With the large Intel Flash ad dancing in the middle of the story, it is easy to imagine ExtremeTech's motivation to breach trusted information given to them by AMD.
You can discuss this subject here. UPDATE: See Van debate ET's Editor-in-Chief, Bill Machrone, on this thread.
Hammer, VIA and nVidia news.
Spencer writes, "The other day I was at Best Buy and checked out the available
computer systems and thought I'd ask an improbable question: "Can I get either
a bare bones computer or one with Linux preinstalled?" The two sales staff
present laughed (which was predictable). However, both of them used Linux
themselves and the suggested that within 18-48 months we would see prepacked
Linux based PC's as retail items. As for business use, I suspect it will come
faster than that. The following quote is indicative of how Linux has been
continuing to gain a following, "Three or four years ago, Linux was a hard
sell, [but now it's] really taking server business away from Microsoft and
Unix," Toxen says. "Microsoft products just aren't as reliable, secure or
cost-effective as Linux." There's a lot more in this excellent business
article.
Soon we won't be able to trust video
Spencer writes, "This article about work at MIT is an example of how the confluence of digitizing everything and using advanced computer techniques is certainly going to render our concepts of 'reality' nearly meaningless. In this example, some crafty researchers have managed to create completely realisitic videos of people saying things they never said! The implications of such technology are huge and will affect the 'truthfulness' of evidentiary videos in legal proceedings, be used for propaganda and political manipulation, blackmail, etc. We may soon never be quite sure if what we see is what really happened."
Nils comments on Byte's article Porting Linux Software to the IA64 Platform.
Review of Elsa Gladiac 925 VIVO GF4 Ti4600, Soyo P4I Fire Dragon Motherboard Review, Fibre Optic Mice, Antec Smart Fans, Exclusive Review : Shuttle SS40 Barebone System and more.
May 16th, 2002
...with gummy fingers. Link courtesy Brad.
Review of Bluetake USB Dongle - ( Wireless Network ), Chieftec Scorpio TX-10BLD Entry Level Server Chassis, Geforce 4 MX440 Roundup, Water Cooling Equipment and Performance Guide - Pumps, Basilisk II: Solving the Printer Problem, 10 Board KT333 Chipset Round Up and much more.
Voting has started for a VHJ Forum logo. Voting will end on Wednesday, May 22. To vote, go to http://www.flickerdown.com/logo/. Decide which logo that you like and remember which number it is. Click on [Voting Thread @ Van's Hardware Forums] located at the top or bottom of the page and vote.
The Benefits of a Short Pipeline
EvilPaul thinks that
AMD could learn a little from Apple about how to
promote its QuantiSpeed architecture. Many of the issues that Apple
brings up were listed (borrowed from?) our
Athlon XP 2000+ review. Apple even hammers on biased benchmarks.
May 15th, 2002
FUD Attack? IBM Drops Intel High-end Server
Arjen sends us this link. How many times can you
count the word *NUMA* in this Intel(?) sponsored article?
Thanks to Bill for sending us the link.
Thanks to Tim for sending us the link. In it, is mentioned this very thoughtful letter written by Peruvian congressman Edgar David Villanueva Nunez and reported on by Mario last week.
Defeating Copyright Protection with Post-It Notes and Markers?
Bill sends us this link. It's translated from German to English. It was reported at chip.de.
Nils sends us some personal ramblings on the computer industry, food and books.
May 14th, 2002
Our logo contest ends tonight at midnight (Pacific Time), so hurry and get your submissions in!
The CopperKing II Heatsink Review, SkyTower, an airborne satellite capable of giving 50Mbps of wireless data transfer to each user, Buy your own space shuttle for...well, whatever you need a hulking space-era icon for, Review of Xoxide Z-40 Insight Modded Case, Leadtek K7N420DA nForce420D Review and more.
May 13th, 2002
Spencer writes, "Microsoft is acting like a schoolyard bully when it comes to enforcing their draconian licensing terms on public education. Nicholas Petreley sums it up."
Almost As Light As Air
Spencer writes, "What is 99.8% air, was used on the Mars Pathfinder and Stardust comet particle collection probe, has nearly 40 times more insulative capability than fiberglass and is sometimes called "solid smoke"? If you guessed "aerogels" you'd be right on. NASA has set a new world record for the least dense solid substance. See these great pages and pics for the Stardust application and the new record setter."
Gainward Ultra/750XP, AOpen AK77-333 KT333 Motherboard Review, Arprotek e-Cube/gBox P4 Small Form Factor System Reviewed, Review of MSI's K7D Master-L 760 MPX - DUAL Athlon Motherboard, Review of Gigabyte Radeon 8500, A Seti Guide and more.
May 12th, 2002
The contest has been extended to Tuesday, May 14th since our message boards were down Saturday early morning.
FIC AN17 Stealth Advanced, Witty Grey Midtower Case Reviewed, Review of GlobalWin TAK68 and CAK-II 16, Dangerden Maze 2 Water Block Review and more.
May 11th, 2002
Forum Thread of the Moment: The P4 Bumps its Head
Clock speed ramping of Intel's young 0.13-micron Northwood core will not likely reach 3.4GHz. In other words, Intel is eating its future with its currently aggressive Pentium 4 frequency hikes.
MSI 845Max2e With Bluetooth Technology, Chaintech Roadmaps For Nvidia And SiS, Beta VIA 4-1 driver 4.39, RecordNowMax Review, Zalman CNPS Cu5005+ Review, More Linux Baby Steps and more.
Only three days left! Logo submissions for the VHJ's Hardware Forum Logo Contest must be in by the end of Monday, May 13th.
There's a leak, there's a leak in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind
Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves, and lawyers!
God's Away, God's Away
God's away on Business.
Business.
-- Tom Waits, Blood Money
May 10th, 2002
IBM's Storage "Bricks"
Spencer writes, "IBM is busy developing a highly modular and self managing disk based storage system made of "bricks", each of which contains a terabyte of capacity on a dozen 2.5 inch drives. Each module has its own controllers, power converters, communications and cooling in a compact cube (more or less). The idea is that by stacking these brick modules a very high density, intelligent, self healing storage array can be built which will be significantly less expensive than existing arrays with their inefficient air cooling, large footprint and external controllers. The plan is to create a fully "virtualized" storage system where any dead components are just left alone and the system overall will work around them. Another inovative feature is the capacitive 10Gbps communications coupling between modules. A good article with simplified diagram is here."
Just when you thought there was no justice in the world....
Phil writes, "It seems the P4-1500 is on par with a
Athlon 1 Gig according to THINK, which is United Devices' cancer research
program. Check them out at
http://www.ud.com.
Notice I broke a year of total CPU time recently. This donated CPU idle time
will lessen my regret for not having done my part should I ever fall victim to
some horrid cancer that has a predilection for my reproductive facilities.
I'm on the http://www.amdzone.com team
right now. Prior to that, I belonged to the
http://www.deadsquirrel.com team,
which is fighting its own good fight against further incursions of the dreaded
grey squirrel, which is taking out native squirrel populations around the
world."
Just a reminder. Logo submissions for VHJ's Hardware Forum must be in by Monday, May 13th.
May 9th, 2002
X-Micro GF4 Ti4600, 5 Things We'd say to Intel and AMD, ATi AIW RADEON 8500 128MB Review, First UK Review of the Prometeia CPU Cooling System, HyperTransport News, Bug or feature? 850E only with PC1066 at FSB533 an dmore.
May 8th, 2002
Joel thanks the contributors for their tremendous response in helping the students at DePauw.
Notes From AMD's Salomon/Smith/Barney Presentation Today
Dave posts these slides from today's presentation. Interesting to note from the desktop roadmap: M2200 in Q2, M2400 in Q3, M3400 (Clawhammer)/M2800 in Q4, M4000 in 1H/’03, and M4400 as a 90nm Hammer in 2H/’03.
ALi Makes Inroads in Areas Besides Chipsets
Mario writes, "DigiTimes reports that ALi has outperformed its rivals with year-on-year revenue growth of 64%. This was not attributable to increased chipset sales, it was heavy demand for its more profitable multimedia chips, which include DVD player and USB 2.0 solutions. These products fall outside the 'Intel tax' umbrella, so offset the license fees that ALi has to pay to manufacture Intel compatible chipsets. Because 82% of its chipset revenues are generated from notebook sales, which are more profitable than the desktop variety, this has also contributed to ALi's market leading performance. The revenue ratio of multimedia products is just over 50%, and is expected to rise to 60% in the second half of this year. Even though ALi is the number three Taiwanese chipset manufacturer, their business model looks eminently more profitable than their competitors."
SEMICON Highlights
Mario writes, "DigiTimes has extensive coverage of the 10th
anniversary of this year's SEMICON Singapore exposition.
SEMI
(Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International) is the trade association
responsible for promoting SEMICON. Day 1 had two articles of interest.
First, System-on-Chip & System-in-Package technologies.
Second, 300 mm (12-inch)
developments, which also gave a historical overview of yesterday's technology
and the savings that 300 mm brings to the table. Day 2 had articles on
South East Asia's semiconductor industry, and also the
global IC market. Day 3 had reports on
MPEG technologies and its bright future, and also,
China's developing semiconductor industry."
MS Judge Wants 'Modular' Windows Demo
Mario writes, "Reuters reports that U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has dealt Microsoft a serious blow by allowing the nine dissenting states who want a modular version of Windows to be part of the remedies decree to demo such a version next week. James Bach, Virginia-based computer testing consultant, has built his modular version of Windows using Windows XP Embedded. Bach will testify that his modular version of Windows turned out "robust and reliable," Kollar-Kotelly said, citing a submission from the states. This could prove to be a defining decision in the four-year-old antitrust case."
D-Link DI-704P Review, Thermaltake Hardcano 2 & 5 Review, MSI BluetoothReview & PCchipsSiS 745 M846FLR 1394, Intel 850E vs SiS645DX, Linux Baby Steps, Sapphire Radeon 8500LE, Zero-Footprint PC Review, Triplex Silver Xabre Pro Preview and more.
May 7th, 2002
What is a Believable Benchmark?
Mario writes on the state of benchmarking.
VHJ Quicks
Mario writes, "Chip biz threatened by Taiwan's drought. ATI "kicks silicon" in Nvidia's face. Jobs puts Mac OS 9 to rest. Red Hat puts on Linux 7.3. Apple users to chat with AOL. California to renege on Oracle contract. Finally! Good news for IT workers. HP-Compaq: Both PC brands will stay. Big Macs and Google--at McDonald's. EU approves tax on U.S. e-commerce. Big price cuts seen for Xbox, PS2. New HP ready to blast the critics. Isonics reportedly ships silicon-28 SOI wafer products to AMD. The California Oracle scandal may not be unique. Getting to know and love StarOffice. Microsoft's Australian customers to revolt against the software giant's new licensing deal. Court orders SonicBlue to spy on ReplayTV users. A lemon law for software?"
Spencer writes,
A federal magistrate in Los Angeles has ordered SonicBlue to spy on thousands of digital video recorder users -- monitoring every show they record, every commercial they skip and every program they send electronically to a friend.
It amazes me that so few are worried by these incredibly intrusive actions. Hey, if you love freedom, you've got to defend it...
May 6th, 2002
EvilPaul lets us know that a "warez" group has officially released rips of Xbox games.
It looks as if Microsoft will have to complain about a new, previously thought "impossible" form of piracy. X-Box has been hacked.
Also Microsoft is expected to drop the price of the Xbox to $199 in May with Sony following quickly with a similar reduction to the PS2.
Peru Boldly Defends Her Software Rights
Mario comments on a thread at slashdot.
Sewage Turned Into Hydrogen Fuel
Phil sends us this from newscientist.com.
Intel 533Mhz P4 2.4B & 2.53Ghz Review, Thoroughbred + Vapochill!, Intel 850E vs SiS645DX, AMD Tech Tour - Vendor Summary and more.
May 5th, 2002
Tyan Thunder K7X First Look, Review of Nanotherm Ice II and Blue II Thermal Compound, General Water Cooling Equipment and Performance Guide, Xoxide PC Tachometer and more.
May 4th, 2002
Mario writes, "Various news media are reporting that Intel's 533
MHz FSB P4 will enter the fray on Monday. The speed grades introduced will be at
2.26, 2.4 and 2.53 GHz. It will be interesting to see how Intel differentiates
the 2.4 GHz part from the 400 MHz FSB device. These new P4s will also be
accompanied by a new 850 chipset and faster 1066 MHz RDRAM memory. These
enhancements are expected to yield up to 15% improvement in performance, which
will add further pressure on AMD to respond.
In related news,
ExtremeTech reports that Intel's new chipset could trigger new lawsuits.
"The 533-MHz bus is not covered under our current license with (other) chipset
companies," said an Intel spokesman. VIA still continues to claim that it has a
10 year cross-license agreement with Intel that it inherited when it purchased
S3 Inc. It looks like the lawyers will again be the winners in this dispute."
[Ed: lest you think we now endorse ZD-Media's ExtremeTech, read Dave's remarks here.]
VHJ Quicks
Compiled by Mario: Samsung builds digital TV microprocessor. Microsoft warns Intel hyperthreading is no panacea. Loyal AMD employee becomes state government minister. Melissa virus writer gets 20 months in jail. Musical chairs at Sun. ActiveX flaw exposes Flash users to hackers. 3DLabs eyes PC graphics comeback. GameCube launches in Europe. Seagate revs up high capacity disks. Notebook sales on the up. Hackers set off on a rampage. OpenOffice 1.0 unleashed against MS Office. DigiTimes achieves 1000th edition. VIA strengthens its wireless communications technology by acquiring LSI Logic CDMA design division. VIA’s April revenues drop by 12.1% month-on-month. Nanya and Infineon sign MOU. Sun's StarOffice: Challenging Microsoft's Office suite. Open-source software opens new windows to third-world. Samba team announces 2.2.4 release. Linux: Up to 34% lower total cost of ownership than Windows. Gartner: Microsoft licensing could push users to StarOffice. Lindows.com Michael's Minutes: Is the Insider Program right for you? MS anti-piracy push leads to Linux adoption in Taiwan. Top ten new copyright crimes. Closer Look: AMD has mixed messages about antitrust. Top internet radio station's silent Mayday.
May 3rd, 2002
…at Mike Magee’s the inquirer.
Gaming Corner: Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast
Joel looks at Jedi Knight II.
More Things to Do with an Old PC, PNY Verto GeForce 4 Ti 4400 Review, EPoX 8K3A+ KT333 Motherboard Review, New SiS Xabre GPUs Info and more.
May 2nd, 2002
Athlon Excels in Real World Benchmarks
Mario writes, "Ace's Hardware has published some Finite Elements Analyses (FEA) benchmarks that shows the superiority of Athlon over P4. The benchmarks were carried out in a real production environment. One engineer commented, 'Why is the Athlon so much faster in the code? This is not obvious by having a look at SPECfp.' What else can one say? Athlon continues to amaze.
Nvidia To Not Pursue P4 License
Mario writes, "CNet reports that Nvidia's CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, has said that his company would not be pursuing a P4 chipset license from Intel. He also said that his company has plans for a follow-on to the nForce chipset, but he gave no details. Nvidia has been suffering from financial woes on two fronts. They've suffered the embarrassment of having to restate their earnings and they're in a price dispute with Microsoft over Xbox chipset pricing. On a brighter note, Huang announced that an upcoming graphics chip with a fundamentally new architecture would debut in August. He also expects that his company will have the largest share of the Macintosh graphics market sometime soon."
Mario writes, "A big understatement on my part. It's more like hundreds of dollars. DigiTimes reports that even though Intel is due to slash prices of its P4-M notebook processors later this month, close Intel customers are already benefiting from these price reductions. This has allowed the big notebook vendors to jump the gun in lowering P4-M notebook prices, which has put the remaining notebook manufacturers at a serious disadvantage. If this is true, this can only be described as an aggrieved situation for these unfortunate notebook manufacturers."
Spencer writes, "NASA has announced the initial selections of new ideas for the forthcoming Space Launch Initiative which is to be the replacement for our current extremely expensive shuttle fleet. The idea is to cut launch costs tenfold (to merely $1K/lb.) and improve reliability by more than an order of magnitude. Both horizontal and vertical launch concepts are under consideration and completely pilotless operation is highly likely for some configurations. The web sites have links to videos and conceptual artwork."
Hexus looks at the C3-Shuttle Space Walker combo and tries a fanless configuration. Although their Sandra test does not show this, the C3 is capable of higher memory bandwidth than the Celeron.
Great Planetary Convergence
Spencer writes, "Skywatchers can see a great planetary convergence in the next ten days. On the 3rd, Mars and Saturn will be only 2.5 deg. apart. On the 5th, Mars, Saturn and Venus form a 3 deg. triangle. On the 10th, Venus and Mars will be only 1/3 deg. apart (about the same as viewing your pinky finger at arms length). A great little article about it (and more) is here."
Shuttle AK35GT2/R Preview, MSI 845E Max Mainboard Photo, ASUS A7V333 Review and more.
May 1st, 2002
Athlon 4 Powers New Fujitsu Notebooks
Mario writes, "AMD announced another design win for its mobile Athlon 4 product. Fujitsu PC Corp. has chosen this processor to power its LifeBook A series, which are commercial notebooks that are designed to meet the requirements of business, government and education users at all levels. All three designs are powered by a 1.2 GHz Athlon 4 and feature AMD's PowerNow power management technology. Software options include Win98SE, Win2000, or WinXP Pro. Product specs and pics can be viewed here. Design looks similar to Sony's VAIO, very nice."
Mario writes, "CNet reports on AMD's gains on Intel, as well as Jerry Sander's comments at yesterday's hardware conference. Michael Dell, who also spoke at the conference, said about Dell's evaluation of Hammer, 'We're very interested and we're looking and there's not much more to say about it in public.' Dell has been openly critical about the demand, performance and cost of Itanium. Customer interest for Itanium servers is 'effectively zero,' said Joe Marengi, senior vice president and general manager, Dell Americas, he added, 'I don't see the speed and benefit to what the processor brings to the equation,' he also went on to say, 'the investment involved in the transition is huge.' Not exactly a glowing endorsement from Intel's number one OEM. If Intel should decide to not launch Yamhill, AMD may at last win its first design win from Dell.
Mario Responds to Reader's Letter
Mario responds to the question: "Exactly what is AMD's contribution to Ferrari's performance this year..."
Chaintech 7SID BIOS to support for XP2000+ ~ XP2200+, MXI G4MX440-T Video Card Review, Soyo KT333 Dragon Ultra Review, Lian Li PC-6083a Midtower Case Review and more.
Spencer writes, "These are from the new ACS installed from a recent shuttle mission. Incredible views of galactic collisions."
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