NEWS, ETC.
Aug 2002
Friday,
30 August 2002
Enthusiasts
Cleared for Space Rocket Launch. A team of
US rocketeers has been given the first license to launch an amateur rocket
into space
Spyware
Trojan Sends Hotmail to Your Boss
AGP
8x More Likely to Enter Mainstream in 1H 2003
Thursday,
29 August 2002
Netscape
7.0 Released Today--What's New? The
flashing banners and pop-ups degrade the site. IE
Casts a Shadow Over New Netscape. The
fanfare behind Netscape 7.0 has been muted by a report released this
week asserting that IE has left Netscape with a mere 3.4 percent of
the browser market...
First
Windows XP Service Pack on the Launch Pad.
Microsoft is expected to release the first service pack for Windows XP
sometime next week.
$299,
Easy-to-Use Linux PC at Walmart. Lindows.com comes
up with a low-cost, Linux-based system that anyone can run immediately,
but there are catches.
Compatibility
Drives Down PC Costs. XML... says word
processors, etc. will use standardized, non-proprietary file formats.
A
Glance at the Future: AMD Hammer Processors and x86-64 Technology
Toshiba,
NEC Propose New DVD Format
Engineer
Reinvents the Electric Guitar
Windows
Security Certificates Vulnerable to Attack
Sweet
Step to Hydrogen Revolution
Want
to Avoid Holiday Malls? Shop at Work
Tuesday,
27 August 2002
Web
Ad Explosion. Financed by corporate
ad dollars, some online marketers are getting sneakier--and more
annoying. You can say that again. They
keep trying to sneak them past me. More than
25 percent of top Web destinations now use some kind of in-your-face
marketing tactics, according to the Internet research firm Cyveillance.
Jaguar
Release Catapults Apple Sales. It's a company record. Consumers snap
up more than 100,000 copies of the OS X 10.2 operating system the first
weekend it went on sale, Apple says. OK,
Apple, just think what would happen to sales if you made an X86 version
that would run on PC's and sold it with a more reasonable license than
the new one offered by Microsoft.
AMD
Angered by Changes in PC Performance Benchmarking. An
AMD spokesman today confirmed that the Sunnyvale, Calif., chipmaker examined
the SysMark 2002 benchmark and concluded that tests had been dropped
that favored AMD's Athlon XP processors. "We definitely believe
SysMark 2002 is heavily biased toward Intel," the spokesman charged. I
don't use SysMark. Not because someone may not like it, but because
I have always used other benchmarks that work and because the importance
and relevance of benchmarks as an indicator of perceived performance
has been exaggerated in reviews (not mine) beyond all reasonable proportion.
Unnatural
Optics Create Precise Photonic Lens. Optical
experiments using arrays of nanowires are demonstrating that the concept
of a negative refractive index... nanomaterials can focus light down
to less than its own wavelength and might even be able to detect a single
molecule.
DDR400
Gaining Ground in Fight for Respectability. The
greatest obstacle facing DDR400 is Intel Corp.'s aversion to validating
the higher-frequency chips and modules. Instead, Intel's memory roadmap
goes directly from DDR333 to the next-generation DDR-II.
Red
Hat: Next Redmond? Red Hat won nearly three-quarters of the $80 million
in U.S. Linux sales last year.
Moose-car
Collisions Stir Push for Hi-tech. The
New Brunswick government is being pressed to consider cutting-edge antimissile
technology to curb moose-vehicle collisions. They
occasionally visit my Asparagus patch and somehow avoid walking on the
plants. Larry
SCO
Name Returns as Caldera Rebrands Itself
Intel
Lights-up Enterprise Optical Transceiver.
Sony
Chip Set improves Picture Quality of Flat-panel TVs
Monday,
26 August 2002
Intel
Launches Faster Pentium 4 Chips. The
new additions to Intel's flagship processor lineup include the 2.8GHz
Pentium 4, alongside 2.66GHz, 2.6GHz, and 2.5GHz models. 533MHz front-side
bus... Press
Release. "Pentium 4 processor-based 2.8 GHz PCs provide
almost six times faster performance than the current installed base
of older PCs." 2.8
GHz Brings Us Oh-So-Close. AMD
and Intel duke it out in our tests of five new systems with four
featuring Intel's 2.8-GHz P4 processor and one running AMD's Athlon
XP 2600+. Faster
Still: The 2.8 GHz Pentium 4. Review
with benchmarks.
Cells
Fuel Innovation. While
processors get faster, networks get wider and applications get smarter,
battery technology continues to lag...
Power supply innovation is arriving in the form of micro fuel
cells—electrochemical devices that create electricity from hydrogen
gas or alcohol.
DVD
Format Fight Looms Over Toshiba-NEC Proposal. Rivalry
among industry titans over next-generation DVDs heated up on Monday
when Japan's Toshiba and NEC said they would propose a cheaper type
of high-capacity disc incompatible with a format advanced by Sony and
others.
Failures
Plague 130-nanometer IC Processes. Yield
and reliability issues threaten the dual-damascene copper interconnect
structures of leading 130-nanometer processes...
Amazon
Expands Free Shipping Again. Based
on results from its test of a $49 threshold, the giant online retailer
experiments with a $25 minimum order size to qualify for free shipping.
Let's
Make a Deal. Ever
wonder what might have caused the telecom bubble to get so bloated
before it popped? ... Who says blogs (slang for Web logs) are just
for technology hounds? A group of Brazilian soap opera stars playing
vampires have started their own blogs...
Buyers'
Guide to PDAs. For simplicity look to a Palm
OS-based device, and for a Windows look and feel go with a Pocket PC
model.
MS
to Intro Product Key Check in WinXP SP1 WPA
The
Top Myths of Computing
Another
Retailer to Sell Lindows-Powered PCs
Brainteaser
Friday,
23 August 2002
Web
Sites, ISPs Lopping Pop-up Ads. Faced
with a groundswell of consumer complaints, some Web sites and Internet
service providers are curtailing those annoying pop-up ads that pitch
everything from wireless spy cameras to on-line casinos. We
don't like them, we don't run them, and we try to avoid links to sites
that do run them.
Chipset
Designers Prepared for AMD’s FSB Standard Change. AMD has reportedly
decided to change the FSB (front-side bus) standard of its upcoming Athlon
XP 2700+ processor from the current 266 MHz to 333 MHz...
New
Super Patch for Internet Explorer Fixes Six New Flaws. This
is getting to be ridiculous. I installed the last security patch
yesterday.
Starbucks
Offering 'Hot Spots' for Internet Users. A
total of 1,200 Starbucks coffee shops nationwide on Wednesday threw the
switch on wireless, local area networks... $2.99 for 15 minutes... monthly
packages available.
You'll
Get AOL and Like It!
Top
10 Digital Cameras Over $500
Surprising
DNA Discovery Could Have Evolutionary Implications
Thursday,
22 August 2002
Seagate
Swings "HAMR" to Increase Disc Drive Densities by a Factor
of 100. The Company today demonstrated
its revolutionary Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology,
which records data magnetically on high-stability media using laser thermal
assistance. Could store up to 50 terabits
of data per square inch.
AMD
and Intel Fight a New Round of Processor War. AMD’s most recent release
of its Athlon XP 2400+ and 2600+ processors on top of Intel’s scheduled
launch of its new 2.8GHz Pentium 4 processor and its impending price
cuts on September 1.
3GHz
P4 Impels Motherboard Makers to Release Two Product Versions. New
Pentium 4 processors, which will be running at clock speeds over 3 GHz,
are incompatible with present motherboards
Microsoft
Plugs Critical Office Holes. Three
vulnerabilities in the software that allow users to view and edit Office
documents in a Web browser... The most serious flaw, rated "critical," could
give an attacker full control over a user's PC.
WorldCom
Deal With AOL Under Scrutiny. Ads Bought in Return For Purchasing
Service...
AMD
Opteron Presentation From Platform Conference 2002
IP
VPN Services to Snowball
Microsoft
To Offer MSN Version for Mac OS X
Wednesday,
21 August 2002
Why
the VIA KT400 Athlon Motherboard Chipset Does Not Support DDR400 Memory
Office
XP vs. Bugs, Round Two. Microsoft
plans to release Office XP service pack 2 today.
A
New Tactic in the Download War. Online 'spoofing' turns the tables
on music pirates. DOJ
to swappers: Law's Not on Your Side. The
Internet has become "the world's largest copy machine" and
that criminal prosecutions of copyright offenders are now necessary...
AMD
Claims World's Fastest Desktop Processor.
Athlon XP 2400+ and 2600+... Press
release.
Athlon
XP 2600+ Reviewed. The 2.53 Pentium 4 outperforms the Athlon XP 2600+
by a significant margin in typical workstation creative work. On the
flipside, the Athlon XP 2600+ is clearly the fastest processor in the
scientific workloads.
Intel
to Debut Faster Pentium 4 Next Week. 2.8 GHz.
Flat-Panel
Display Prices Set to Plummet
More
IT Pros Turning To Web For Tech Help
Tuesday,
20 August 2002
Dell
Finally Turns to Resellers. Dell
will offer an unbranded PC to a number of dealers in the U.S. shortly,
concentrating on dealers who effectively act as computer departments
for small companies...
RealNetworks
Launches New All-Format Player. RealNetworks
began offering a new digital media player on Tuesday that plays back
music and video in all formats, including those of its main competitor,
Microsoft.
ATI
Leaps Ahead
Microsoft
to Roll Out Office XP SP-2
At
25, NASA's Voyager Heads to Solar System's Edge
Monday,
19 August 2002
Wyse
To Unveil New Windows-Based Thin Clients. New
products come into one of the only growing IT markets.
Report:
AOL's Got Unhappy Customers. Consumer
satisfaction with America Online is extremely low compared with other
Web portals and with every almost sector of American industry, according
to a new report.
AMD
Athlon, nVIDIA nFORCE2 Chipset Power New HP-Compaq D315 Business PC. HP
Puts Athlon in Low-cost PC for Businesses.
Methane-Powered
Laptops: They're a Gas!
Apache
Upgrade Released to Fix Security Hole
Top
10 LCD Monitors
750MB
Iomega ZIP-Drive
Fusion
Redux
Friday,
16 August 2002
DVD
Recording Could Boost PC Sales. Recent
market research surveys suggest that DVD recording technology is ready
to take off among consumers. Businesses are also eyeing the technology
as a possible solution to growing storage problems. Stand-alone
DVD recorders cost about $1,000 now, while PC-attached drives sell
for between $300 and $500...
New
RAID Controllers: Serial ATA From 3ware, Ultra320 From Adaptec. In
traditional SCSI or parallel ATA cards, multiple drives are connected
to the same cable, meaning they share a common bus, thereby limiting
performance, said Murphy. Since the Escalade 8500 uses a switched architecture,
performance when multiple drives are connected is equal to the sum
of all the drives and actually scales with the number of drives... Serial
ATA
Global
Internet Growth Slowing Worldwide Internet use grew slowly in the
second quarter, with 553 million people now connected to the Web from
their homes, according to a Global Internet Trends report from Nielsen//NetRatings.
That figure represents a 4 percent growth rate, down from 7 percent growth
in the first quarter of this year.
GPS
Makers Lock on to Personal Security Technology. Using
postage-stamp-sized GPS boards, makers of security hardware will begin
in September to roll out wristwatches and pager-sized units that can
be used to track lost individuals to within a few feet.
Wandering
Penguin Finds a Flock. Efforts
to stop Linux from splitting into incompatible versions--the fate that
hobbled Unix--move forward as key companies get behind a standardization
plan. International
House of Penguins.
Microsoft
Patches Windows 2000 Flaw, SQL Holes. The company called the Network
Connection Manager vulnerability "critical" and said it could
allow an attacker to take complete control of Windows 2000 systems.
Dell
Posts Profit, Enters Printer Market
Nvidia
Confirms 333 FSB for AMD
Top
10 Scanners
Hypersonic
Scramjet Test a Success
VIA
Launches KT400 Athlon Motherboard Chipset
Wednesday,
14 August 2002
Sun
Pushes Linux on the Desktop. "We are very focused on the
desktop," McNealy said... "Don't go to Dell and buy a Windows
PC. Go to Wal-Mart, you will get just as much technical support." Walmart
sells PC models without Windows; Dell is starting to do it also... Dell
Unhooks Windows From Desktops. Are
we seeing a revolt because of Microsoft's new licensing? I think
Yes.
PluggedIn:
Camera-Phones Double as Photo Albums. If
you sit down to lunch at a Tokyo restaurant and a business associate
offers to show you pictures of her toddler, chances are she'll reach
not for an envelope of photo prints, but for a mobile phone with a built-in
camera.
Big
Blue Shrinks by 15,600 Jobs
Buyers'
Guide to Rewritable DVD Drives
Robot
Teaches Itself Flying Skills in Three Hours
Tuesday,
13 August 2002
Red
Hat Expanding to Corporate Desktop. Open-source
technology provider will release a formal desktop Linux product geared
toward the corporate market early next year. LINUXWORLD
SF: Red Hat rolls out support for AMD's Hammer. Hat
plans to demonstrate a 32-bit version of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server
running on a 64-bit Athlon-based system at the LinuxWorld 2002 exhibition
in San Francisco. What happens if
both Red Hat and Apple come-out with GUI Desktop Operating Systems
for UNIX and AMD's 64-bit processor?
Intel
Stretching Silicon for Power. Intel
will increase the performance of its microprocessors next year, in
part by spreading out its silicon atoms.
The
Future of Microprocessors Revealed. A
bumper crop of microprocessors -- bigger, faster and cooler than last
year's models -- is set to be unleashed at the 15th annual Microprocessor
Forum in October. ...IBM is putting multiple processors on a single
chip designed for desktop use....
Web
Spec on Deck. The first draft of XHTML 2.0 makes its debut--and it's
already raising concerns over compatibility.
File-swapping
Foes Exert P2P Pressure. The
new plan appears to extend the target beyond companies with an apparent
declaration of legal warfare against individuals who the industry believes
are swapping illicit songs or movies through peer-to-peer networks.
Fuel
Cells March Toward the Mainstream. Suppliers of micro fuel cells
may finally be preparing to make a bid for the $10 billion-a-year rechargeable-battery
market.
Brand
Name Brain Buzz
Upbeat
Signs in the Electronics Market
Severe
IE Flaw Undermines SSL Security, Expert Says
A
Grandchild's Guide to Using Grandpa's Computer
Monday,
12 August 2002
Opening
Up to Open Source. LinuxWorld Conference & Expo
will showcase innovations, such as Linux clustering, that aim to further
open source's role in the increasingly cost-conscious corporate world.
Opening
the Door for New Storage Options. A long-running
legal battle that has significantly delayed the ability of many companies
to produce next-generation
optical disc players and recorders has come to an end as Japan's
Nichia and Toyoda Gosai announced they decided to reach a settlement.
Now
Showing, In Your Mailbox. Netflix,
a start-up that had its initial public offering of stock in May, is being
hailed as a new way of delivering movies that packs more punch than it
might initially seem. Pop-ups!
Intel,
AMD to Cut Prices. Financial
pressures on Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. are mounting
amid weak sales and falling stock prices, spurring the PC chip makers
to initiate a new round of price cuts in the next month in a bid to boost
demand
Just
Out of the Gate: IBM’s New Server Hard Drive Outperforms Seagate. IBM
First to Ship Seagates 15K Ultra320 SCSI Cheetahs in Its RAID Servers. ???
Ace's
Guide to Memory Technology: Part 3. DDR333,
DDR400, DDR-II, and 32-bit PC1066 RDRAM.
Online
Shareware: Is Anyone Paying?
Friday,
9 August 2002
IBM
Breeds PC Chip From Server DNA. Big
Blue plans to design the new desktop PowerPC chip using technology
from its Power4 processor for servers.
Taking
Aim at Auction Sniping. Sniping
technology essentially automates the process of placing bids on Internet
auctions. It can put your bid in during the last few seconds of an auction.
July
Shipments at Taiwan First-tier Motherboard Makers Grew 16%. July
shipments at Taiwan’s first-tier motherboard makers surged by 16% from
June, hinting that the worst might be over as the sector entered the
seasonally strong third quarter.
Top
15 Notebook PCs
WorldCom
Reveals $3.8B More in Errors
Solar
Power to Challenge Dominance of Fossil Fuels
The
Future of Technology
Thursday,
8 August 2002
WorldCom
Discovers $2 Billion More In Discrepancies. CNBC
report said that WorldCom used an "accounting trick in which most
of the $2 billion was reversed from reserves for bad debts into operating
income."
Don't
Get Googled by Hackers! The popular search engine houses a flaw in
its toolbar that hackers can use to execute multiple tasks; Google responds
with fix.
New
DVD Spec Gains Speed. One
of the two DVD industry groups jockeying over competing standards is
trying to give added speed to its spin with a new specification that
will cut recording times on 4X DVD+R discs.
Data
crunch Looks to Optics for Relief. The
need for corporations to manage and transfer data in large quantities
is turning into a major driver for dense wavelength-division multiplexing
optical networking...
Lawsuit
Targets Toshiba Notebooks. Toshiba
has been hit with a class action lawsuit that alleges some of the company's
notebooks overheat and then don't work right after being fixed.
Flat-panel
Prices Sink on Low Demand. Sluggish
sales and an end to component shortage problems are making flat-panel
monitor prices attractive for buyers. Expect a steady decrease in retail
prices this year, analysts say.
Consumers
Unhappy With PC Support. Apple
Computer, which grabbed the top spot in the survey with a score of
74 out of 100 and was the only company to earn higher marks this year
than it did last year.
FTC,
Microsoft Reach Settlement on Passport Probe. The software giant
agreed that it should have done more to protect the security of its online
sign-in service, and said it will do better in the future.
FCC
Votes To Require Digital Tuners on All TV Sets by 2007. By
law (U.S.), the last analog television broadcast signal is targeted to
be switched off by Dec. 31, 2006.
Boy,
Have You Got Mail: Spam Attacks on Rise. Between
12 and 15 percent of total e-mail traffic is spam, up from about 7
percent a year ago.
Abit
Reports 1H Losses, Lowers 2002 Forecast. Affected by massive inventory
clear-outs, foreign currency exchange losses and the poor performance
of its subsidiaries, motherboard maker Abit Computer on August 7 posted
a first-half loss of NT$300 million. Abit has chosen to outsource
production of its low-price line to ECS.
Flu-Like
Illness Kills 283 in Madagascar. 7%
of reported cases.
Dr.
Gary Explains Why Computers Sometimes Crash
Motorola
Recalls TV Set Top Cable Boxes Over Safety Concerns
Drug
May Restore Color to Gray Hair
Wednesday,
7 August 2002
Microsoft's
New Software Policy Leaves Many Customers Fuming. ''I
have been covering Microsoft for 14 or 15 years, and I've never seen
this level of anger, of outrage, of dissatisfaction.''
Quantum
Computer Called Possible With Today's Tech. Researchers
at the University of Wisconsin in Madison claim to have created the world's
first successful simulation of a quantum-computer architecture that uses
existing silicon fabrication techniques.
Frayed
cable Vendors Search for Technology Lifeline. The
second quarter was not kind to cable vendors, with major companies like
Belden, CommScope, Corning, and General Cable all reporting net losses
or lower earnings than a year ago.
WorldCom
Moving Wireless Users to Other Carriers. Wireless
customers of WorldCom are being prompted to transfer their business to
other U.S. wireless carriers to avoid an interruption in service.
Microsoft
to Tout Unix, Web Development Tools at LinuxWorld
NRC
Demonstrates New Spin Transistor
Fusion
Reactor Breaks Duration Record
AMD
Intros 64-Mbit 1.8-V Only flash Memory
Switch
fabric Market to Boom Through 2006
He
Made a Gold Mine of the Trevi Fountain
Tuesday,
6 August 2002
Windows
XP: What's the Business Verdict? And
though the business upgrade rate is not as brisk as Microsoft might
wish, analysts believe it is just a matter of time before XP Pro becomes
the standard.
Verizon
To Bundle Phone, Web Services ...will
sell packaged local, long-distance and cellular telephone service and
digital-subscriber-line Internet service for less than the cost of buying
the services separately...
Canon
Won't Supply Printers to Dell. "Their
prices are cheap," he said. "We will not do low-end products
in printers."
Flaw
Discovered in Symantec Firewall. A
vulnerability has been discovered in Symantec firewall products that
would let a knowledgeable attacker hijack any connection to Symantec's
software-based or appliance-based firewalls...
Monday,
5 August 2002
First-tier
Motherboard Makers Saw Sales Recovery in July.
First-tier motherboard makers reported a sales rebound in July, thanks
to gradually rising demand at the start of the traditional third-quarter
high season.
IE
Alternatives: Three New Contenders. Mozilla
1, Netscape 7, and RapidBrowser XP try to turn up the heat on Internet
Explorer.
300-mm
Fabs: A Turning Point for the Industry?
Microsoft
to Reveal Windows Code
Friday,
2 August 2002
Chip
Sales Up 5.8% in Q2, SIA Reports. While
computer and computer-related sector demand is lagging, wireless and
consumer sectors continue to strengthen.
Taking
the Air Out of Pop-ups. Some
online publishers are taking pins to pop-up advertisements, but Web
surfers won't likely notice a decline in the annoying marketing ploy
anytime soon. The Dux Computer Digest
has not and will not run pop-ups. IVillage
Punctures Pop-Ups.
Feds
Get Tough with Security Vendors, Researchers. Some
security companies have been accused of releasing exploit code for
known vulnerabilities, particularly in Microsoft Corp. software, before
the vendor could produce a workable patch and get it out to customers
in a timely manner.
Trojan
Horse Found in Open-Source App. Several versions
of OpenSSH, a free network connectivity tool, could allow attackers to
take over PCs.
September
Could Breathe Some Life Into the Stagnant PC Case Sector...
as demand surges from Intel’s latest chip price cut, computer case makers
predicted.
Thursday,
1 August 2002
IBM
Announces Opening of East Fishkill 300
mm Semiconductor Facility in Upstate New York. Believed
to be the most advanced of its kind, the 140,000 square feet
facility features a highly automated manufacturing line powered by
more than 1,700 processors, each operating at more than 1 GHz and accessing
more than 110 terabytes of storage. One 300 millimeter (12 inch)
wafer can hold about 50 billion transistors. Making
Semiconductors.
Former
WorldCom CFO, Controller Arrested. Two
former senior officials of bankrupt telecommunications firm WorldCom
Inc. were arrested and charged with securities fraud.
Corel
Happy To Step Into Microsoft's Shoes. Microsoft's
decision to charge an annual fee for software upgrades is meeting with
widespread disdain by the business community. One of the software giant's
competitors sees this as a unique opportunity.
AT&T
Broadband Opts for Tiered Pricing. AT&T
Broadband is offering a faster and pricier level of cable Internet access,
dubbed UltraLink.
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