NEWS, ETC.
December 2002

Tuesday, 31 December 2002

The Chips Double Up in 2003: Analysts. Crystal balls see double-digit growth in the semis with Intel riding high on Banias and Hyper-Threading chips and AMD looking to break the IT spending lock with its 'Hammers.'

Last-Minute Tax Savings. Charitable donations, IRA contributions, and even tax advice are available on the Internet in the waning days of 2002.

Online Spending Busts Records. Buoyed by an increase in the population of online shoppers and more liberal spending by online shopping veterans, e-commerce in the United States leaps nearly 40 percent.

World's First Maglev Train Opens

Monday, 30 December 2002

Chip Sales Continue Gradual Recovery. Worldwide semiconductor sales hit $12.68 billion in November, a 1.3% sequential increase from the $12.51 billion in revenue reported in October 2002... November sales are up 19.6% from November 2001 sales of $10.60 billion.  Global Chip Sales Growth Slows in Nov. Growth in global chip sales slowed to 1.3 percent in November from October, well below average growth for the month...

Samsung Develops 54-inch TFT LCD for DTVs. Samsung Electronics recently announced that it has successfully developed a 54-inch TFT LCD of 6.22-million-pixel resolution...

Requiem for the Pay Phone. As cell phone use increases, an icon gradually dies.

Integrated Chipsets Gain Popularity

Choosing a Windows HTML Editor

Friday, 27 December 2002

Quantum Dots to Form Basis of Next-generation Computer Displays? MIT researchers have combined organic materials with high-performing inorganic nanocrystals to create a hybrid optoelectronic structure—a quantum dot-organic light-emitting device (QD-OLED) that may one day replace lLCDs.

Intel price cuts to lead to fiercer competition in discrete chipset market. Competition in the discrete chipset market is expected to be heightened further with Intel’s price cuts scheduled for the first quarter of 2003.

Should You Move to Linux?  This excerpt from The Business and Economics of Linux and OpenSource details the factors to weigh when deciding whether to move to Linux. Also: migration tips if you take the plunge.

WorldCom Lost $234 Million in October. WorldCom's losses nearly doubled in October from the previous month, and sales of its telecommunications services remained flat...

Group Claims Creation of First Human Clone. A scientist associated with a group that believes extraterrestrials created mankind claimed Friday that her company had produced the first clone of a human being.

Thursday, 26 December 2002

1.1 Million Jobs Coming for Haggard IT Workforce. The struggling IT workforce looks to see a strong boost in 2003, with a new study predicting that IT managers will need to fill 1.1 million jobs in the next year.

Attack of the Killer Web Robots. They swarm the Internet harvesting e-mail addresses and free accounts to spawn hoards of junk messages...

As Linux Advances, Microsoft Alters Message To Lure Customers. As businesses increasingly adopt Linux to run their computer servers, Microsoft is shifting the battleground from schoolyard insults or techie-speak to corporate notions of "business value."

Removable Hard Disk Group to Show New Device. A consortium of companies developing a removable hard disk system for consumer use called iVDR (Information Versatile Disk for Removable usage) plan to unveil a prototype 1.8 inch drive with a serial ATA interface for the first time at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in January

Seagate 80 GByte Serial ATA Drives Now Available. Serial ATA (SATA).

New Laser Should Mean 16X DVD Writers by 2004

A Yawn Of a Year In Tech

Tuesday, 24 December 2002

Blue Christmas for Retailers. Shaping up as the worst holiday shopping season in 30 years.

Microsoft Ordered to Carry Java.  A U.S. district court judge on Monday ordered Microsoft to include Sun Microsystems' version of Java with the Windows operating system, citing the software giant's history of undermining the platform-neutral programming language.

Microsoft, Adobe in Document Duel?  Adobe Systems readies a new business push as industry giant Microsoft moves ahead with plans for software that could nibble at the edge of Adobe's market.

Monday, 23 December 2002

Micron Shows-off 1-Gbit DDR SDRAM. Initially, the 1-Gbit DDR SDRAM will be used in 4-Gbyte DIMM modules.

Pop-ups Add New Twist. Some pop-up advertisements will include a new feature that can direct someone to another Web site by a simple move of the cursor across the ad--no clicking necessary.  Seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot... with a cannon.  Dux does not run pop-up advertising of any kind.

Great Deals, and Risks, From Buying Hardware at Online Auctions

Best Products of 2002

Friday, 20 December 2002

IBM 16-Processor Servers Hit Market. IBM hit the market with its much-hyped 16-way servers and used the occasion to announce it has surpassed rival HP as the leading provider in high-end servers.

Sharp's 3D Monitors: Look, No Glasses.  Bodies and bullets appear to fly all over the place in a version of Quake that has been adjusted to work on Sharp's 3D monitors.

Online Ad Market Warming-up. While online advertising is still far from what it was during the devil-may-care dotcom heyday, the battered market is starting to show signs of modest growth.

A Tiny Galaxy is Born

Thursday, 19 December 2002

IBM, Dell, Sun Vet InfiniBand. IBM, Dell and Sun Thursday are expected to give customers a glimpse of their intentions for the faster, next-generation I/O bus, InfiniBand, which so far, has languished in products from a handful of start-up vendors.

AOL May Strike Gold With Instant Messaging Patent. The broad wording of the patent means AOL could get an important legal leg up on rivals Microsoft and Yahoo, the other players in the potentially lucrative instant messaging (IM) arena, that have their own proprietary technologies.

Cable-ready Digital TV Deal Forged. Consumer electronics manufacturers and the cable industry have resolved their basic differences that clears the way for the manufacture of cable-ready digital TV sets.

Headset Offers Bluetooth Experience for All. Personal connectivity enthusiasts have been applauding the arrival of Bluetooth technology that allows wireless networking between mobile devices and headsets.

Micron Loses $316 Million. Decreasing prices for memory chips this fall pushed Micron first-quarter loss to $315.9 million, far worse than Wall Street expected.

Microsoft Flaws Could Hit Music Traders. A security firm finds vulnerabilities in Windows XP and music player WinAmp that allow a modified music file to take control of a person's PC.

RealNetworks Patches RealOne Player. The patch closes nine security holes.

Out-of-body Operation Banishes Tumours. For the first time, cancer has been treated by removing an organ from the body, giving it radiotherapy and then re-implanting it.

What Is A Gene, Anyway?

Wednesday, 18 December 2002

New 'Iraq Oil' Network Worm Found. Unlike other worms that spread through mass e-mailing, Lioten scans the Internet for vulnerable Windows machines that are sharing folders with other users on a home or business network.

DDR333 Memory Spot Prices Climbing. DDR333 spot prices shot up 7% last week and are continuing to rise, reported Taiwanese DRAM distributors.

IBM Unveils World’s Fastest Desktop Hard Disk Drive With New Serial ATA Technology. Formally announced in September 2002, Deskstar 180GXP is a 7200RPM drive with maximum cache size of 8 MB and highest capacity offering at 180GB.  Of course, IBM is selling its hard disk drive operations to Hitachi.

Monday, 16 December 2002

Cooling Down Hot Computer Chips. Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have been working on an elegant solution for the military that could soon find its way to desktop and laptop computers.

Gateway Offers Free PC with High-end Purchase. The company is offering a free low-end desktop with the purchase of a high-end desktop or notebook PC, a Gateway spokesman said.

IE Continues to Gain in Browser Wars. Microsoft's Internet Explorer has increased its share to 95 percent, of which IE6 has 57.6%.  Netscape has 3%.

Spammer Banned From Harvesting E-mail Addresses. A Dutch court has ordered a spamming computer seller to stop harvesting e-mail addresses from an online address guide and to delete the already collected addresses.

Master Memories are Made Not Born. Superior memorizers have neither higher IQs nor special brain structures, a study reveals, instead they have the best memorizing strategies.

Patent Office Starts Testing Paperless Processing System. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has begun limited usage of a system that will process applications electronically and is due for a full deployment next June.

Top 10 CD-RW Drives

Handheld GPS Devices

Friday, 13 December 2002

New Netscape Punctures Pop-up Ads. The new pop-up-stopping Netscape 7.01 was released Tuesday, offering a belated compromise for Web surfers increasingly buffeted by intrusive advertising.

Taiwanese PC Makers Enjoyed Strong November Sales. Boosted by seasonal demand, Taiwanese PC makers and assembly contractors enjoyed strong November sales.

TV Screen Battle: Plasma vs. LCD. Lusting after a big, flat-screen TV? Plasma is the choice now--but LCDs are gaining fast.

A Quick Look at the Fastest Apple PowerMac.  Basically, the 1.25 GHz dual G4 PowerMac is slower than most high end PCs (including single-processor ones).  In multi-threaded content creation applications, it can perform like a 2.2 GHz Pentium 4 and even a 3.06 GHz one.

Thursday, 12 December 2002

Google's Froogle Finds Your Products. Attention online shoppers: Google is beta-testing a new service called Froogle that uses its search engine to help find products on the Web.

Microsoft Plugs Eight Holes in Its Java Software. A serious security flaw in Microsoft's virtual machine, found on most Windows PCs, could allow an attacker to take over a user's system.

Wednesday, 11 December 2002

Forrester: '03 IT Spending Forecast is Mixed. IT spending at large companies in North America next year will be a mixed bag across various industries, with some edging up slightly and others showing no rebound or dropping year-on-year...

Survey: DSL Growth Hits Record High. The number of digital subscriber line customers worldwide grew at an unprecedented rate from July through September, providing signs of life for the broadband market, a survey says.

IBM Waves Goodbye to OS/2 Operating System.  I wish I had a nickel for every time a perspective buyer asked me, "Is the computer [you are trying to sell me] OS/2 compatible?"  In all of those years I believe I saw less than a handful of computers that actually had it installed.

Tuesday, 10 December 2002

Consumers Flock to Online Sites. Web retailers bag big gains, with sales for November up 22 percent from a year ago and those for the first post-Thanksgiving week up 34 percent, according to new reports.

AMD Applies Thoroughbred Core to All Athlon XP Processors. With its 0.13-micron process transition moving on track, AMD recently decided to introduce its 0.13-micron Thoroughbred B0 core to its entry-level Athlon XP 1700+ and 1800+ processors to cut costs further as well as improve product performance.

AMD Unveils High-performance Athlon for Servers/Workstations. Introduces the Athlon MP 2400+, for enterprise servers and workstations and scientific applications.

Monday, 9 December 2002

Dude, You're Getting a So-So Handheld. Dell's new Axim X5 easily undercuts every other current Pocket PC or Palm device with an equivalent display.

A $199 PC with No Windows, No Intel Inside. By dropping software from Microsoft and avoiding "Intel inside," retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc.is offering a $199 computer it says is a hot seller on its Web site, attracting novices looking for a way onto the Internet as well as high-end users wanting a second box.

IBM to Reveal Supertiny Transistor.  The length of the transistor's gate--a tiny pathway for electricity--is only 6 nanometers, or 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

AMD Details Groundbreaking Research In New Transistor And Memory Cell Structure. AMD will present several new technical achievements critical to the creation of next-generation transistors and memory cells at this year’s International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) held in San Francisco, December 8-11.

Microsoft Upgrades IE Flaw to Critical. Change is response to criticism.

Solar Cells Aiming for Full Spectrum Efficiency. A material that can soak up energy from almost all of the Sun's spectrum could improve solar power generation.

Friday, 6 December 2002

Intel Expects Better 4Q Revenues. Boosted by the better-than-expected sales in Asia, Intel announced that its fourth-quarter revenues are expected to reach US$6.8 billion to US$7.0 billion, up from its previous forecast of US$6.5 billion to US$6.9 billion.

Gateway Delivers Pressplay Service on PCs. Gateway to "jazz" up a ho-hum Christmas season by announcing a deal with online music provider Pressplay to load its PCs with 2,000 songs from hit pop stars from Eminem and Bruce Springsteen to the Dixie Chicks and Frank Sinatra.

Top 11 Signs Your Co-Worker is a Closet Mac User

Thursday, 5 December 2002

AMD Raises Fourth Quarter Sales Expectations. AMD is currently projecting fourth quarter sales to approach $700 million, an increase of approximately 35 percent over third quarter 2002 sales of $508 million... stronger than expected PC processor demand and continued strength in Flash memory products.

DDR Contract Prices To Slide Starting Early December. DRAM contract prices are set to slide starting in early December, as suppliers dive into 12-inch production even as Christmas season demand tapers off, said distributors.

Intel Said to Allow Overclocking on New Own-brand Boards. Intel is reportedly planning to offer limited overclocking functions on its own-brand motherboards for the upcoming Canterwood and Springdale platforms, a slight change from the chipmaker’s previous firm policy against overclocking.  I guess the sales department and $ overruled the sound principles practiced by the engineers over the years...

AT&T, IBM, Intel Plan Nationwide Wi-Fi Network. AT&T, IBM and Intel today plan to announce the formation of a joint venture to roll out Wi-Fi public access hot spots nationwide.

Microsoft Warns of IE, Outlook Flaws. A glitch in IE could allow  information to be pilfered from computers.  A second problem affecting Outlook 2002 could let a hacker deny user access to the program.

Mathematics Unravels Optimum Way of Lacing Shoes

Wednesday, 4 December 2002

Handhelds: New Palm OS--A High Five. First devices based on the Palm 5 OS raise the stakes in the PDA wars.

Xerox Describes Printable Electronic Circuit Techniques. Research fellow at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada, has developed semiconducting organic polymers that allow electronic patterns to be printed on a plastic substrate, paving the way for integrated circuits printed on plastic rather than etched on silicon wafers.

NVIDIA nForce2 Based Mainboards Roundup

Tuesday, 3 December 2002

Hands-On With Next-Generation Hard Disk Drive. SATA (Serial ATA) offers little benefit over the fastest parallel ATA100 or ATA133 setup in a single-drive system.  But that's for now.  SATA is the future of ATA for a variety of reasons...

Red Hat to Target Workstations, Telcos. The Raleigh, N.C., software vendor is aiming to more closely align its Linux workstation and server operating systems so that developers can create client-server applications using a common code base.

Survey: Linux Gaining Acceptance in the Enterprise. The study, based on an October survey of 100 IT managers at large U.S. multinationals, says that 39 percent of respondents had deployed Linux "in some capacity."

Microsoft-Based Servers Cheaper to Run Than Linux. Microsoft, fearful of being undercut in the market for server software by free offerings based on Linux, on Monday released the results of a sponsored study that concludes Windows 2000 is generally cheaper for businesses to run and support.

Monday, 2 December 2002

Hottest Hard Drives. The 200 GB Western Digital Caviar and the 180 GB IBM Ultrastar are listed as the fastest ATA drives on the market

October Semiconductor Sales Kick Start Q4. "If there are any doubts remaining about the strength of the global chip industry, a healthy recovery continues as we move into the fourth quarter."

Six Companies Propose Industry Standard for Printing From Digital Cameras. Canon, Fuji Photo Film, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Olympus Optical, Seiko Epson and Sony on December 2 announced a proposal for an industry standard that enables consumers to easily print photos by directly connecting their digital still cameras to their printers – no PC required.

Feds Give Nod to IBM-Hitachi Deal. The Federal Trade Commission grants approval for Big Blue to sell its money-losing hard-drive business to Hitachi, in a transfer expected to take three years.

Digital Image Stored in Single Molecule. Researchers at the University of Oklahoma found that the 19 hydrogen atoms in a lone liquid crystal molecule can store at least 1024 bits of information.

Index