NEWS, ETC.
April 2003

Wednesday, 30 April 2003

Corel Unwraps Smart Graphics Studio. Smart Graphics Studio relies on the World Wide Web Consortium-certified Scalabale Vector Graphics schema for visualizing information using XML.

Many Microsoft Applications Will Not Run on Windows 2003. Users migrating to Windows Server 2003 have been warned that many current Microsoft applications will not run on the recently launched server operating system. Windows Server 2003: Early Users Take the Plunge. Microsoft launched its long-delayed Windows Server 2003 operating system last week, but some users couldn't wait.

Patching Is the Problem, says Microsoft.  Providing reliable, easy-to-install patches expensive and troublesome, says security chief. Come on! The problem is releasing software that requires a lot of patches to fix!

AMD to Release Its Fastest Desktop Chip. The company is set to deliver its new Athlon XP 3200+ processor, sporting a 400MHz system bus, during the first half of the month, say sources familiar with the company's plans.

IBM On Board with Itanium. The launch of IBM's x450 four-way server signifies a major commitment to Intel's Itanium technology.

Xerox Eyes Rebirth with New Copiers, Lower Prices. Plans to take aim at its toughest rivals with a raft of low- to mid-level digital copiers and printers, as part of efforts to go on the attack after years of scandal and losses.

New Virginia Law Makes Spam a Felony. Under the law, senders can be prosecuted if they consciously alter either e-mail header or other routing information and attempt to send either 10,000 messages within a 24-hour period or 100,000 in a 30-day period.

Computex 2003 in Taiwan Postponed, Dates Uncertain. The 2003 Computex trade show, originally scheduled for June 2-6, will be postponed to the second half of this year.

Advances Pave Way for 'Nanobots'

Earliest Handwriting Found?

Rodent Road Signs

Hubble Camera Outperforms Expectations

Cold Plasmas Destroy Bacteria

Fish Feel Pain

Tuesday, 29 April 2003

IBM Raises Quarterly Dividend. Its board raised the quarterly dividend by about 7 percent to 16 cents a share.

Microsoft Makes Strides on New Windows. A more advanced test version of Windows XP's successor has leaked onto the Web, and analysts say it indicates that Microsoft has stepped up work to deliver the new operating system.

Welcome to Spam Week. Wacky stunts? Spammers in the slammer? Bounties on unscrupulous mass e-mailers? While the FTC listens, Congress talks tough. Do-Not-Spam List Proposed. Senator says a national registry could prevent unwanted e-mail.

Web Innovators See Biggest Gains from Small Hacks.

Apple Music Service Offers Songs for 99 Cents

Lucky Discovery Uncovers Cancer-proof Mouse

Monday, 28 April 2003

Consortium Hits Milestone in Effort to Enhance Ethernet. Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) helps reduce latency in data transfers between systems by directly placing data from one system's main memory to another's without the need for extensive buffering or CPU intervention.  RDMA Consortium.

Cisco To Unveil Wi Fi Phone. Cisco Systems is launching in June a mobile phone that uses the popular WiFi wireless technology.

Intel Cuts Celeron Prices. Intel lowered its high-end Celeron processor prices, with cuts reaching around 20%.

Intel Has Been Boxed Into a Corner. Intel has created a situation in which it has really only three places to sell its CPUs: HP, Dell and white-box (or custom-systems) manufacturers.

Judge: File-swapping Tools Are Legal. A federal judge hands a stunning court victory to file-swapping services Streamcast and Grokster, dismissing much of the music and film industries' lawsuits against them. The ruling in no way validates the legality of downloading copyrighted music online.

Proteins Produce Nano-magnetic Computer Memory. Computer hard drive capacity could be increased a hundredfold by using a common protein to fabricate nano-scale magnetic particles.

Microsoft Embraces Linux! (Sort Of). Whoa, stop the train. Microsoft porting to Linux?

Friday, 25 April 2003

Linux founder Opens Door to DRM. Linus Torvalds, the founder of the Linux operating system, threw a curve ball to the open-source programming community Thursday.

Ballmer Unveils New Windows. Microsoft launches Windows Server 2003, Visual Studio.Net 2003. Ballmer: No Sleep Lost Over Linux.

Microsoft to Delay Office Debut. The software maker is preparing a new test release of its upcoming Office 2003 desktop software, which will delay the debut until later this year.

Intel to Offer Emulation Software for Intel 64-bit Itanium Processors to Emulate Intel 32-bit Pentiums/Xeons.

2003 Computex May be Delayed or Canceled. The 2003 Computex trade show in Taipei, originally scheduled for June 2-6, may be delayed or even canceled as a result of the worsening SARS outbreak.

B2C Goes From Rags to Riches. The e-commerce sector has emerged as a rare bright spot on the Internet with projections that B2C revenues will reach $133 billion by 2005.

What's Mightier Than Spam? Spam has gone from minor nuisance to major problem in a fairly short period of time. Some industry estimates place the annual cost of lost productivity due to spam glutting corporate in-boxes in the billions of dollars...

Thursday, 24 April 2003

FCC Seeks Public Comment On Power Line Broadband. Hailing the step as a "monumental moment," the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted Wednesday to solicit public comment on broadband Internet service delivered over ordinary electric power lines, a step that could create widespread competition for cable modem and DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) services.

Flyweight Linux PC Comes-out Swinging. VIA and U.S.-based PC maker Mini-Box have unveiled a tiny desktop computer featuring an embedded Linux operating system... the size of a dictionary and weighs about two pounds. More info.

Windows Server 2003 Prepares for Grand Entrance. Microsoft will debut its newest server operating system today, marking the beginning of the company's quest to take on big iron in the datacenter and boasting deep integration with the rest of its product line.

Physicists Plunder Life's Tool Chest. DNA is both bricks and blueprint - an engineer's dream.

Microsoft Releases Critical Patches

Wednesday, 23 April 2003

Latest Windows XP Patch Can Slow-down PCs. The patch, which Microsoft calls the Q811493 hotfix, can cause computers running Windows XP to slow down to a crawl, affected users say.

AOLTW: Return to Profit, Sales Up in Q1. AOL Time Warner (AOLTW) returned to profit in the first quarter as revenue in its movie and TV business increased and restructuring measures took hold...

PC-Doctor Announces Support for AMD Opteron Processors. PC-Doctor, Inc., a leading global developer of hardware diagnostic and system information tools, announced that PC‑Doctor will now test AMD Opteron processors and AMD64 solutions to help ensure quality, industry standardization and to reduce product returns.

Chipset Designers Put Greater Emphasis On New K7 Products.  Despite the long-awaited launch of K8-core Opteron processors from AMD, chipset designers are currently occupying themselves more in preparing products for AMD’s upcoming K7-platform, 400MHz FSB (front-side bus) Athlon XP processors, aimed at the relatively larger desktop market.

Electronics Heyday Coming to an End, Says Noted EE. There will come a time when chip vendors won't be able to double the number of transistors on a chip every two to three years as they have for the last forty years.

Tuesday, 22 April 2003

AMD Introduces the 64-bit Opteron Processor for Servers and Workstations. AMD Releases Opteron: It's Hammer Time! AMD64 technology represents the first true crossover from 32 bits to 64 bits for the x86 line. In contrast to Itanium's IA64 architecture, AMD64 kept 32-bit processing a priority, since there is huge software base out there. The result: a microprocessor that runs both 32-bit software and 64-bit software very well. IBM Backs Opteron Server Chip. Big Blue says it will use the brand new server chip in future server hardware because it will enable it to answer customers' requests for a high-performance server at a lower price.  Microsoft and AMD Jointly Developed Hammer Chips. Opteron Launch Dell, HP evaluating Opterons, IBM and Fujitsu Siemens making them. NVIDIA Extends NVIDIA nForce Platform Into Professional Workstation Market.  NVIDIA nForce3 Professional is Company's First Platform Solution for 64-bit AMD Opteron(TM) Processor. VIA Announces Chipset Support for the New AMD Opteron Processor. VIA Apollo K8T400M Chipset leverages HyperTransport™ technology, VIA Ultra V-Link and integrated SATA/RAID to provide the bandwidth necessary to feed demanding enterprise class applications. MSI Announces K8D Master Dual AMD Opteron Server Platform. The K8D Master incorporates built-in 64-bit Dual Gigabit Ethernet, 3 PCI-X slots, 2 32-bit PCI slots, onboard ATI Rage XL graphics (8MB) and 6 slots of DDR333 DIMMs supporting up to 12GB memory. Opteron: Pushing x86 to the Limit. Is the Opteron a Real Sledgehammer?  We (Ace's) think it is.

Intel Resumes New Pentium 4 Shipments. Intel is again shipping its new 3GHz Pentium 4 processor, a week after it halted shipments due to the discovery of an "anomaly," an Intel spokesman said Monday. PC makers that use the chip in their systems have been supplied with a software update to fix the issue.

Worldwide PC Shipments Up 5.5%. Worldwide PC shipments totalled 34.5 million units in Q1, a 5.5 percent increase from the same period last year and a better start overall for the year, according to preliminary results from Gartner.

Cable vs. DSL--Which Is Faster? Cable modems are 50 percent faster on average than DSL connections, according to a new study that also lists the companies offering the fastest access.

Monday, 21 April 2003

AMD Debuts 64-bit Processor at 32-bit Prices. AMD today rolled out its long-awaited 64-bit processor line for servers--a family of chips that threatens Intel Corp. by offering 64-bit performance at 32-bit prices (actually, the official launch is tomorrow). The company is also working on a desktop version, codenamed ClawHammer--which has been delayed several times and will not be introduced until September of this year. AMD Rolls Dice on Opteron Chip. Advanced Micro Devices will come out with a new chip on Tuesday--and once again, everything is on the line. AMD's Opteron Targets Server Gap. AMD is aiming Opteron at the market sweet spot of two- and four-way servers, giving IT managers a platform to link 32-bit X86 applications with the growing suite of 64-bit enterprise software. AMD Puts 32-bit Twist On 64-bit Opteron. New chip may force Intel to play catch-up. AMD Athlon 64 Performance Preview. We (X-bit) managed to get our hands on an engineering sample of the AMD Athlon 64 2800+ processor... SuSE Offers Linux for Opteron. The company releases a version of Linux tuned for AMD's Opteron processor, set to launch Tuesday, with rival Red Hat planning its own product for the fall.

Is Open Source Apple's Salvation? While Microsoft complains bitterly about open source, Apple has found a way to have its cake and eat it too.

Sony To Invest Billions In Next-Generation Entertainment Chip. Sony will invest about 200 billion yen (U.S. $1.66 billion) over the next three years to produce advanced chips that will be used in its next-generation computer entertainment system.

LCD Monitors Taking Greater Share of Monitor Shipments. Sharp increase in 1st Quarter.

Disk Drive Prices Seen Headed for Further Erosion. The disk drive market is again facing strong pricing pressures that have forced manufacturers to reinstate sales incentives in an attempt to lure back skittish distributors.

Beware Mystery Fees for Web Services. Web firms face investigations of 'cramming'--charging via telcos for unordered services.

Online Ad Outlook Brightens. More and more, traditional advertisers are cooing over digital media--a sound that's music to the ears of Web publishers still stricken by the dot-com bust.

Once You've Tried WiFi, There's No Going Back

Intel Cuts Some Processor Prices

Top 10 Scanners

Genetic "Smart Bomb" Knocks-out Hepatitis

Friday, 18 April 2003

MCSE Certification Glut. With more than 200,000 IT professionals certified as MCSEs on Microsoft Windows 2000 alone, there is growing frustration over the limited opportunities for these specialists in today's contracted marketplace.

Dell Is Back on Top of Worldwide PC Shipments. Dell capitalized on a shift in buying from consumers to commercial customers in the first quarter, retaking the lead in worldwide PC shipments from HP...

Gateway Posts $200M Loss in 1Q. Struggling computer-maker Gateway on Thursday posted a first-quarter net loss of $200 million, which it attributed to its restructuring efforts and the sluggish economy.

Opteron Prices Reflect AMD Confidence. The Opteron processors for midrange servers coming next week from Advanced Micro Devices will range in speed from 1.4GHz to 1.8GHz, said sources, and AMD is apparently not thinking small on price.

Chipset Designers to See Gloomy 1Q Results. Taiwan chipset designer ALi Corporation posted a first-quarter loss of NT$94 million, a record loss for the past seven quarters.

Microsoft Research Offers Peek at Future. Spam busters, terabyte databases, and cleaner code are top projects.

Switches and Chips Feed WLAN Frenzy. Engim is rolling out what it believes will be a disruptive approach to wireless LAN chip design in the form of a multi-channel, multi-band switching chipset.

Sony to Recall 20,000 More Vaio PCs Due to Glitch. Sony said it would recall 20,000 Vaio desktop personal computers sold in Japan between September 2002 and January 2003 to replace defective power supply parts.

Thursday, 17 April 2003

Dell vs. Cisco: Network Switch Showdown? Dell seems to be making inroads into the low end of Cisco's market.

Active Skin Merges Electronics, Nerves. Electronics on and in the skin will be possible within this decade with electronics linked to the nerves by 2015.

AMD Posts Wider First-Quarter Loss. The company's net loss for the quarter was $146 million, or 42 cents a share, compared with a loss of $9.16 million, or 3 cents a share, a year earlier.

Office 2000 SR-1 Registration Bug Strikes Corporates. Windows 2000 PCs running a specific version of Office 2000 have been hit by sudden, unexpected requests to continually register the software with Microsoft.

MS Drops .Net Label From Server Software. The company is unveiling a new branding approach for its server-software products to synch up with next week's launch of Windows Server 2003 and to clarify the muddled .Net label.

Experts Warn Not to Apply Microsoft Patch. Security companies find dubious content in Windows 2000 fix...

Wednesday, 16 April 2003

Intel speeds up Pentium 4-M, Celerons. PC makers have begun beefing up their notebooks with a trio of new mobile processors from Intel.

Tuesday, 15 April 2003

Worldwide Chip Market Faces 2003 Slowdown. According to market research firm Semico worldwide semiconductor market is facing an impending slowdown, and 2003 could be yet another weak year.

Intel, AMD to Cut Processor Prices... on high-end products as they introduce new processors during the next few weeks to stimulate demand.

CD-RW Drive Packs More Data. Plextor has announced a new CD-rewritable drive that can squeeze 40 percent more data into standard blank discs.

Human Code Spelled-out in Three Billion DNA 'Letters'

Monday, 14 April 2003

Major combat in Iraq ends in 27 days with the fall or Tikrit

Novell Turns Up Heat With Linux Push. Novell will make a major push for Linux by supporting both the NetWare and Linux kernels in the next version of NetWare, now known as 7.0 Novell Services.

Intel Delays New Pentium 4 Chip. A possible glitch with a new processor has thrown a wrench into Intel's plans to bring out new silicon for high-performance chips for top-of-the-line PCs.

Oxygen Mix Promises to Increase Fuel Cell Performance. Supercharging fuel cells by premixing the fuel with oxygen holds out the promise of superslim fuel cells that can be manufactured on a printing press.

Friday, 11 April 2003

Senators Introduce Junk E-Mail Bill. Two U.S. senators introduced a bill on Thursday seeking to cut down on "spam," the unwanted junk e-mail that by some estimates accounts for 40 percent of e-mail traffic worldwide.

Open Source Alternative: NetBSD. NetBSD's main claim to fame, so to speak, is its portability. Although ports of Linux are available for several platforms, NetBSD blows the penguin's doors off when it comes to platform support.

Microsoft Limits XML in Office 2003. A distinction between professional and standard versions of Office 2003 means some customers may not get all the features they've been expecting, including broad support for Web services.

Intel Takes Ultra Wideband to 220M bps

Thursday, 10 April 2003

Microsoft Confirms Windows for AMD Opteron Processor. Microsoft will release a 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP for AMD's forthcoming Opteron and Athlon64 processors.

Western Digital Lights Up World’s Largest 7,200 RPM External Hard Drive. New LED-illuminated Design Showcases 250 GB Capacity FireWire/USB 2.0 Combo Special Edition External Hard Drives.

Novell Offers Free Networking Software. The software will be available as a free bundled addition with applications from third-party developers, who are also receiving the product gratis. The package includes Web access, collaborative tools and security management.

Wednesday, 9 April 2003

Baghdad Falls

Wednesday, 2 April 2003

Home Networking Market Poised To Explode. The market for home networking products stands to nearly triple over the next five years.

Is the White Box the Right Box for Dell? Dell Computer has conquered servers and workstations, moved into printers and even sells its own PDA. But its foray into making "white-box" PCs isn't exactly going smoothly.

Microsoft Dials-in Internet Telephony. A new version of Microsoft's operating system for small devices, due in June, can be used to make IP phones, the software maker will reveal Wednesday.

Microsoft unveils Office 2003 lineup. When Microsoft Corp. releases its Office 2003 suite in June, several new application bundles will join the Office lineup, including a high-end Professional edition and a new Small Business edition.

Intel Makes the Chips Fly. Faster Celerons will appeal to the business market and new chipsets will put users on a faster bus.

Radar Tests Point to Lost Panel on Shuttle

Tuesday, 1 April 2003

Computer Virus Spreads to Human. [Tuesday, April 01, 2003] A software developer from Houston, Texas has become the first human to contract a computer virus, microbiologists have confirmed.

Internet Tax Moratorium Bill Gains Support. More than 100 members of the U.S. Congress have sponsored a bill that would make permanent a five-year moratorium against levying taxes on the Internet that aren't levied elsewhere.  The tax moratorium, in effect since 1998, will expire Nov. 1.

AOL Lays-off 420 Customer Call Center Employees. America Online (AOL) has laid off 420 customer service call center employees in an effort to further reduce costs.

Sun Dumps Its Own Branded Linux for Established Vendors. A seven-month effort to establish its own branded Linux distribution is being ended by Sun Microsystems Inc. because of customer opposition to yet another Linux version in the marketplace.

Security Holes in RealPlayer, QuickTime. Security flaws in two of the most popular digital media players have put millions of PCs at the mercy of attackers.

Hynix Slapped With 57% Import Duties. The U.S. Commerce Department imposed the duty on imported DRAMs because of illegal Korean government subsidies to the chipmaker. But Hynix says it can work around the sanctions.

GM Blood Kills Human Cancer Cells

Index