NEWS, ETC.
March 2003

Monday, 31 March 2003

Chip Sales Up 18%.  While February marked the second month of sequential decline, SIA sees hope in the month's $1.8 billion year-over-year growth in chip sales.  Global Chip Sales Disappoint and Stocks Fall.

Put a Bunch of Cheap PCs Together and What Do You Have? An Economic Revolution.

Creating the Digital Living Room. Hewlett-Packard is now making another stab at reconnecting digital music with living-room stereos, and this time it's got the basics right.

Organic LEDs Herald Flexible Displays. Of the several display technologies that have been identified as candidates to enable high-performance (full-color, higher-resolution, video image) flexible displays, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are the closest to reaching critical mass in terms of both development activity and industry adoption.

Adobe Gets Ready To Rumble With Microsoft. Adobe Systems is making changes to Acrobat that could mean lower desktop licensing costs for many businesses but higher prices for design and engineering users.

Motorola Reveals Nanocrystal Chip. The company says it has a prototype of a flash-memory chip that could help the flash industry overcome looming technical hurdles.  Moto Lab Builds 4-Mbit 'Nanocrystal' Memory.

Microsoft Beefs Up Wi-Fi Security in XP. Microsoft releases a free XP download with support for Wi-Fi Protected Access, an alternative to the WEP protocol.

Microsoft Price Cut targets Small Firms. Solomon, Great Plains and Navision software lines to get new, lower price tags.

More Headaches for Sendmail. A remotely exploitable vulnerability in the open source message transfer agent leaves the Sendmail organization scrambling over the weekend to prevent attacks on unpatched servers.

Friday, 28 March 2003

Wireless Plug-and-Print Solution Can Connect to Printers Up to 1,200 Feet Away. IBM's new plug-and-print Wi-Fi adapter provides businesses with instant, high-speed, wireless network print capabilities.

Windows Server 2003 Goes To Manufacturing. Microsoft is expected to announce Friday that its long awaited Windows Server 2003, the first major server upgrade in three years, has finally been released to manufacturing.

Tech Group Cooks-up Wired Kitchen. The Internet Home Alliance, a group hoping to expand the market for funky connected devices into the home, is set to unveil a prototype of a Web-connected kitchen that lets people control their appliances remotely.

MandrakeSoft Upgrades Desktop Linux. Version 9.1 of the OS includes KDE 3.1, Gnome 2.2.

Bill Would Allow Check Transfer Electronically. U.S. lawmakers want to let banks exchange checks by electronic image, a process they say will speed up check clearing, benefit consumers and make banks more efficient.

AT&T Hits 'Fat-finger' Scam

Europe's Population Set on Shrinking Course

Thursday, 27 March 2003

Cable Companies Charged With Gouging Broadband Customers.  U.S. consumer groups charged that cable companies were gouging customers who only subscribe to high-speed Internet service but not cable television, and asked antitrust enforcers to investigate.

Macromedia Frees Flash From the Browser. Macromedia hopes to make its Flash animation player a "first-class citizen" on PCs with a new addition that allows the software to operate outside a Web browser.

Tiny Xerox Chip to Cut Fiber Costs. The company says its new chip, which is about the size of a fingertip, will greatly diminish the cost of connecting homes and offices to fiber cables in the ground.

Enterprise IT Spending to Increase Steadily, Report Says. Even with the downturn, overall enterprise IT spending increased 3 percent between 2001 and 2002.

Five TV Makers Preparing Internet TV Specs. Five Japanese TV manufacturers will form a working group to hammer out technical specifications by October for digital TVs with Internet access.

Samsung Puts 29-inch Flat CRT TV, DVD and VCR in One Package

Nimble-Fingered Neandertals

Wednesday, 26 March 2003

IBM to Produce Nvidia Chips. The graphics chipmaker inked a manufacturing deal with Big Blue so it could avoid putting all of its graphics chips in one basket.

FTC Says Anti-Telemarketing List Ready by October. Consumers will be able to place their phone numbers on the list starting in July, and as of October most telemarketers will not be allowed to call those numbers.

Lead Times Get Longer for Some ICs Wednesday. The days of instant supply and low prices for semiconductors are coming to an end as demand catches up with supply.

Cable Suppliers Defend Price Hikes. No longer able or willing to absorb the mounting costs of petroleum byproducts used to manufacture cables, some suppliers are raising prices despite concerns their customers may object and seek out lower-priced competitors.

AOL Says 'You've got Voicemail!'. America Online (AOL) is turning up the volume on its premium offerings, introducing a voicemail service that also allows users to receive home voicemails in their e-mail inboxes, as well as access AOL e-mail over the phone.

From PC to Rec Room. Consumer electronics vendors are betting that you'll spring for a new category of products designed to move your music and memories from your computer to your existing TV and stereo gear over a wired--or wireless--network.

Notebooks eke-out More Market Share. PC manufacturers shipped a total of about 30.5 million notebooks in 2002, accounting for about 23.5 percent of the worldwide PC market.

Windows Server to Ship in Parts. Microsoft will ship many important Windows Server 2003 components after the product launches next month, a strategy shift that means more updates between major new releases.

World's First Transparent Transistor. Engineers at Oregon State University have created the world's first transparent transistor, a see-through electronics component that could open the door to many new products.

Like Hubble, New Telescope Likely to Rewrite Astronomy Textbooks. A new space telescope to be launched in mid-April should open another window on the universe, pulling into focus objects too cold, distant or clouded by dust for other observatories to see.

Ruby Slows Light at Room Temperature

Tuesday, 25 March 2003

Adam Osborne, Computing Pioneer, Dies At 64. Adam Osborne, the creator of the 23 pound Osborne-1, dies yesterday. Tech old timers will likely remember the Osborne, the first commercial portable computer...

Broadband Puts Pressures on Retailers, Report Says. According to Forrester Research, broadband results in smarter, more demanding shoppers, who also spend more money.

SMC Networks Unveils New, Longer-Range Wireless PC Card. The SMC2532W-B 2.4GHz 802.11b High Power Wireless PC Card features an operating range of up to 2,700 feet.

Microsoft Bails Out of W3C. In a sign of growing discord over Web services guidelines, Microsoft has pulled out of a key Web services standards working group

Microsoft Caps Hotmail to Prevent Spamming. Company reduces number of messages users can send to 100 per day.

Red Hat Hits 9 on March 31st. Red Hat will make Red Hat Linux 9 available to Red Hat Network subscribers on March 31, a week before users can download it from Red Hat's site or buy it in retail stores.

Dell Launches Personal and Workgroup Printers. Dell marked its entry into a market long dominated by rival HP, announcing four printers for personal and workgroup use.

Shuttle Data Tape in Good Condition, Says NASA. The magnetic tape from Columbia's data recorder could provide vital new clues in the search for the cause of the disaster.

Flat Lens Could Significantly Enhance Object Resolution

Monday, 24 March 2003

AMD Serves Up Opteron Plans. AMD plans to ship the Opteron processor line on April 22,a move that would put the vendor in both the 64-bit and server-based processor markets. The 64-bit version of AMD's desktop processor, Athlon 64, initially was slated to ship earlier this year, but the company delayed its release until September.

Samsung Kicks-off Mass Production of DDR-II. Samsung Electronics today announced that it has begun mass production of the industry’s first 1GB DDR-II dual in-line memory module (DIMM), based on 512Mbit DDR-II components.

Dell Feeds Its First Printers. The company next week intends to launch two laser jets and a multifunction inkjet that will be priced in the same range as similar models from rival Hewlett-Packard.

Friday, 21 March 2003

Tech Hides Data, IDs Inside Music Files. SunnComm Technologies says it has licensed a new product that can hide data, video, software or an identifying watermark inside music files.

War Prompts Digital Mayhem. The onset of the Iraq war is prompting a flood of cyberattacks and malicious e-mail worms, as hackers of all stripes and colors seize an opportunity to wreak online havoc.

Top Advertisers Using Online More. Top traditional advertisers have begun to finally make online advertising a noticeable part of the media mix, according to new research by Nielsen//NetRatings.

Researcher Finds Solar Trend That Can Warm Climate. Since the late 1970s, the amount of solar radiation the sun emits during times of quiet sunspot activity has increased by nearly .05 percent per decade, according to a study.

Thursday, 20 March 2003

Cisco to Buy Linksys in $500M Stock Deal. Cisco Systems Inc. is back on the acquisition road, with plans to snap up wireless vendor Linksys in a stock deal valued at US$500 million.

Verizon Expands DSL Lines as MSN Shifts Strategy. With broadband sign-ups on the rise, the telco upgrades DSL-ready lines as Microsoft's MSN tweaks its Internet strategy away from dial-up users.

Web News Keeps Pace With Fast-moving Iraq Situation. The Internet has once again proved itself a mainstream medium for the instant coverage of major news events, with online newspapers in most Asian countries posting minute-by-minute updates of the Iraq war on their sites.

Virus Writers Take Advantage of War. A new e-mail worm is tricking people into opening dangerous attachments by promising military satellite images of Iraq.

Wednesday, 19 March 2003

Iraqi War Starts

LindowsOS PC Challenges Windows, Mac. New low-cost computers using alternative Linux-based operating system reach retail outlets in Canada.

Latest Windows 2000 Patch Can Lock System. The patch, announced Monday, is incompatible with 12 previous software fixes and computers with any of those fixes won't reboot.

Micron Delivers 4Gbyte DIMM to Intel. Micron supplies Intel with what it claims is the industry's first 4Gbyte DDR SDRAM registered dual in-line memory module.

Tech Sector Hit Hard With Job Cuts. The technology industry has shed 10 percent of its work force over the last two years, a new report shows, and downtrodden dot-commers continue to feel the pain.

Can AOL Survive? The problem is that inclusive services like this with their captive audiences always assumed there was some sort of pot of gold at the end of the online rainbow. There isn't. In their current forms, both AOL and MSN are just fooling themselves.

Adaptec Introduces SATA Adapter. Adaptec unveiled a two-port SATA adapter card that supports up to two SATA hard drives and RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD (non-RAID) capabilities.

Computer Glitch May Have Caused Drug Labeling Errors. California HMO Kaiser Permanente said this week that the computer problem was caused by a power outage.

Sun Unveils New Developer Program, Portal. Sun Microsystems on Wednesday unveiled a new program aimed at helping developers build Web services using Sun ONE software, company executives said in a press conference at the Web Services Edge conference here.

Spider Silk Delivers Finest Optical Fibers. Use of the threads enables the creation of ultra-thin, hollow fibers that are narrow enough for the fastest nanoscale optical circuits. Interesting read.

Making Mountains Out of Molecules. At IBM Research, Phaedon Avouris spends his days delving into the basic behavior of matter and takes a no-nonsense approach to nanotechnology.

Top 10 17-Inch Monitors

Mystery Killer: Yep, It's a Virus...

Tuesday, 18 March 2003

Gateway Cuts Jobs, Shutters Stores. The PC maker has begun notifying 1,900 employees of layoffs and intends to shutter 76 of its retail stores in the next week as part of its plan to return to profitability.

In the Slow Lane. Far from the leading edge, thousands of IT managers are trying to figure out how to exploit the Linux phenomenon, switch from IBM's older operating systems to z/OS or upgrade from Microsoft's aging Windows NT Server. Here's a rare look at those users on the lagging edge.

Record the TV, Digitally. With the multitude of options now available for recording TV digitally, the death knell for VCRs.

Europe Quietly Forms Polymer Electronics Project. Perhaps the best-kept secret in the electronics industry at the moment is the upcoming deadline for non-European companies to join the biggest polymer electronics R&D program ever. Called PolyApply, the project is due to shut out applicants from North America and Asia as of April 24.

Knowledge Management. It may sound like old news, but KM is worth another look -- thanks to a host of maturing KM-enabling technologies and a need for enterprise efficiency.

Linux firms Look to Plug Samba Hole. A major flaw in the software for sharing Windows files from a Linux server has open-source firms warning companies to apply a patch.

Microsoft Warns of Exploit in Windows 2000, IIS

Monday, 17 March 2003

TI Unveils a Chip Called Wanda. Texas Instruments brings out a 3-in-1 design for mobile devices, which it said is the world's first to integrate cell phone networking, 802.11, and Bluetooth technologies. Nextel Plans Smartphone, Wi-Fi Phones.

SuSE Linux Announces Play at Home Version. Hoping to attract a wider audience, SuSE Linux Thursday said it is making a friendlier "home user" version of its operating system available starting next month.

Friday, 14 March 2003

Effort to Cut-down on Pirated TurboTax Rankles Users. Web chat rooms have buzzed with customer complaints that Intuit's addition of Macrovision's SafeCast technology, which ties each TurboTax program to a single computer, violates privacy and puts users' machines at risk of damage.

Music Companies Fear New 100-hour Discs. The recording industry condemns the launch of two systems that will allow people copy up to 100 hours of music onto a single disk.

2003 PC Sales Prediction Softens. PC sales will grow in 2003, but at a slower pace than earlier expected, due in large part to cutbacks in PC spending by governments and education.  6.9% instead of 8.3%.

VIA, SiS Report Chip Shortage Again. VIA and SiS reportedly are experiencing tight chip supply, as demand from motherboard makers for the first quarter has appeared to be better than expected.

U.S. Nanotech Funding Expected to Hit $1 Billion. The urgency is being driven in part by growing international competition. Estimates of Japan's investment in nanotechnology R&D run as high as $500 million a year.

Best Wi-Fi Ever: 802.11g. Early products are fast, affordable, and work with popular 802.11b gear.

Microsoft Expands on Plan to simplify Data Center. The Dynamic Systems Initiative is supposed to make it easier for companies to deploy and manage applications across large groups of servers.

Thursday, 13 March 2003

Vendors Push Ultrawideband as Wireless Alternative. Several vendors are pushing to forge a new wireless networking standard from an emerging technology that could greatly increase the transfer rate between wireless devices.  Its range would be less than that of WiFi, however, at about 10 meters.

Memory Cards Get Smaller, Faster, Cheaper. New cards offer more storage (up to 4GB), at the lowest prices yet.

Top 10 DVD Drives.  DVD-RW drives are approaching $200.

Fishy Food Cuts Belching Beasts' Methane

World's First Brain Prosthesis Revealed

Wednesday, 12 March 2003

CeBIT Starts in Hanover, Germany

3Com Launches Power Over Ethernet Family. Power over Ethernet (PoE) removes the need for separate A/C power connections for each IP phone, network device and wireless access point. 3Com's new devices conform to the IEEE  P802.af draft standard that is due to be ratified by June.

High-Speed Web Buoys Gloomy Tech Companies. The high-speed Internet has emerged as a beacon for firms at CeBIT, the world's largest electronics trade fair, as computer gear makers, telecoms operators and consumers embrace the technology.

DVD Recorders on the Up. The average price of a DVD recorder will fall to $600 this year and to $450 in 2004.

Microsoft flicks on IM Webcam. Microsoft said it has begun offering Webcam functionality on its MSN Messenger instant messaging software, heating up the battle of features against America Online and Yahoo.

Tiny, Quirky Digital Cameras Debut. With digicams that fit into a tin of Altoids and models the size of hockey pucks, several camera makers are unveiling tiny cameras for the spy in all of us.

AOL Pops Pop-Ups. AOL announced it would install a pop-up-blocking option on the browsers of all users of its AOL 8.0 Internet service, following up on its decision to ban third-party pop-up ads in October with its much-hyped launch of AOL 8.0.

Intel and AMD Roll-out Notebook Processors. Dueling processors is to be the theme Wednesday on both sides of the Atlantic, as Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. roll out their newest chips for notebook computers.

DDR Memory Contract Prices Down 11-12% in Early March. Contract prices for 256Mbit DDR in early March softened their slide and a price rebound could happen in the second half of this month.

New Code Red Worm Variant Raising Alarms. A new version of the Code Red worm is spreading on the Internet.

Giant Lab Construction Begins. The Diamond synchrotron being built in Oxfordshire at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) will probe deep into the basic structure of matter and materials.

Robot to Help Cows Milk Themselves

Tuesday, 11 March 2003

Digital TV Market to See Rapid Growth. The DTV market is growing faster than predicted, due in part to an FCC mandate that DTV tuners be integrated into all TV sets sold in the United States larger than 13-inches by mid-2007.

Samsung Shows off 54-inch Flat Screen Telly. The company will introduce the new 54" TFT LCD screen at CeBIT in Hangover [sic, literally], tomorrow.

IBM, SCO Clash Over Unix License. IBM says it has an ironclad contract to ship Unix products. SCO's reaction? "Hogwash!"

Has OS Emulation Come of Age? How can users cope with the need to run programs written for different operating systems? One solution is to "emulate" the OS they need.  OS emulation has been around for years, but it has been plagued by performance and compatibility problems. Has this technology's time finally come?

Bad Passwords Open New Can of Worms. If your password is password. You could be contributing to the spread of worms and viruses, which use a limited lexicon to exploit bad passwords.

Universe as Doughnut: New Data, New Debate. "Cosmologists have built a house of cards and it stands," said Dr. James Peebles, a cosmologist at Princeton.

Monday, 10 March 2003

Old Europe's New Economy Expo. Three years after the Nasdaq bubble popped, the technology trade show remains a much-hyped phenomenon. This week, Europe's biggest tech expo, CeBIT, kicks off in Hannover, Germany.

Microsoft Kicks Off Giant Office Beta Program. Microsoft Corp. today is set to release the public beta of the of the next version of Microsoft Office, aiming to reach half a million users in one of its biggest programs ever to test out new software. Office 2003—A Major Overhaul. Microsoft Unveils Office 2003 Beta 2. Prerelease suite gives first look at note-taking, XML apps. The Office 2003 beta can be ordered here for $19.95.

Sun to Release StarOffice 6.1 Beta Next Week. In a bid to bolster competition in the enterprise market for desktop productivity software, Sun is positioning StarOffice as an alternative to Microsoft's Office 2003.

Intel at Edge of Wireless Revolution? The chipmaker is betting that wireless technology will be the biggest thing since the browser. New notebooks coming Wednesday may be an indication of whether the company is right.

Display Makers Pin Hopes on 3D LCDs. Several Japanese companies this week announced that they will establish a consortium to promote products and applications for 3D stereographic liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), in an effort to bring the technology into the commercial mainstream.

VIA Announces Launch KT400A Motherboard Chipset for the AMD Athlon XP Processor. DDR400 memory and serial ATA hard disk support.

Deloder Slowly Worms Its Way on Net. It leaves two Trojan horse programs in its wake and may pave the way for a distributed denial of service attack, but experts are not yet rating the worm as a high risk to PC users.

AMD CEO: New Chip Winning Key Customers. Advanced Micro Devices is gaining share in the memory market from rival Intel and is poised to lure major computer makers to its new heavy-duty microprocessor.

New Transmeta Chip Shows Athlon64 Flair. Transmeta's TM8000 chip will feature an entirely new architecture, executives say, but it will also share some design ideas with the upcoming Athlon64 from Advanced Micro Devices.

Gene Silencing Could Wipe-out Farm Pests

Friday, 7 March 2003

VIA Heightens RAID Chip War With VT6420. VIA Technologies on March 6 introduced its Serial ATA (SATA)/RAID controller chip, the VT6420, further heightening the competition in the RAID chip market this year.

Microsoft Issues First-Ever Dividend. 8 cents a share.

Silicon Offers Double the Battery Life, Lab Says. Adding a controlled amount of silicon to the graphite normally used in the anode of a lithium-ion battery may double the energy storage capacity of that battery.

SCO Sues IBM Over Linux, Seeks $1 Billion. Unix developer The SCO Group has filed a law suit against IBM charging it with misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition and other illegal actions related to IBM's Linux business.

Appeals Court Rejects Net Porn Law. The Child Online Protection Act, a federal law aimed at curbing Internet pornography, violates Americans' free speech rights and is unconstitutional, an appeals court rules.

Study Finds Hybrid Cars Greener Than Hydrogen Cars.  Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles have low emissions and energy use on the road, but converting a hydrocarbon fuel such as natural gas or gasoline into hydrogen to fuel such vehicles uses substantial energy and emits greenhouse gas.

Man Converts Apple 2e Into Intel Inside Machine

Thursday, 6 March 2003

Gartner Warns Against Buying Uncertified Wi-Fi Devices. Jumping on the 802.11g bandwagon may result in interoperability problems with other 802.11g devices, as well as older 802.11b wireless LAN technology.

NVIDIA, ATI Release Dueling Graphics Chips. The two largest graphics chipmakers square off at a Gamers conference in the Silicon Valley with their long-awaited GeForce FX and RADEON processors.

Enraged Computer Owner Shoots Up Machine. George Doughty hung his latest hunting trophy on the wall of his Sportsman's Bar and Restaurant. Then he went to jail.

For Microsoft, It's 'Greenwich' Beta Time. Microsoft is set to make a showing in the enterprise instant messaging and collaboration market Thursday with the release of a beta version of its real-time communications server software technology, codenamed "Greenwich."

U.S Firms Get Better Bang for IT Buck. Companies in Europe are spending almost twice the percentage of their revenue on IT than U.S. companies.

National Semi Narrows Loss...

DDR Chip Spot Prices Up; Module Prices Down

Recognizing the Internet's Unique Role in advertising

New Cold War Over Fat Cats?

Cowabunga!

Wednesday, 5 March 2003

Springdale Boards on Top of Mobo Makers’ Program Lists for CeBIT. Motherboards based on Intel’s new 865 (Springdale) and 875 (Canterwood) chipsets are expected to enjoy the sole spotlight at the CeBIT Hannover exhibition beginning next week, as Taiwanese chipset designers have still not obtained technology licensing for the 800MHz FSB (front-side bus) standard, the new feature of the Springdale platform.

RackSaver, AMD in Server Wars. Growing popularity of multi-processor Linux supercomputing clusters has opened the door for smaller manufacturers.

Toshiba Prototypes Methanol Fuel Cell for Laptops. The new fuel cell gives about five hours of operation with 50 milliliters of fuel.

New Office Beta all Set to Launch. Most Office applications will be able to save information as XML, greatly facilitating the exchange of data between applications. This could help many businesses free up valuable content locked in Office file formats.

Chinese Start-up Readies 64-bit Processor. One of the country's most promising start-ups, BLX IC Design Corp., Ltd., is closing in on a 500-MHz microprocessor that it will market toward China's leading server vendors.

Top 10 Ink Jet Printers

Aspirin Slashes Risk of Mouth and Throat Cancers. The humble painkiller aspirin adds to its already impressive repertoire of beneficial effects.

Tuesday, 4 March 2003

Systems Builders Deride Microsoft Pricing. Solution providers heatedly and repeatedly questioned a top Microsoft channel executive during a public appearance, seeking answers about why the software giant continues to provide pricing advantages to large computer makers at their expense.

IBM Recalls 5-Year-Old Monitor. The 15-inch G51 could begin smoking and catch fire.

Price War Continues; 802.11b WLAN Cards to Plunge to US$10 in 2H. Dipping to near US$10 from the current US$16-17, as new players, both chip suppliers and equipment makers, try to get a foothold in the already saturated market.

GeForce vs. Radeon Heavyweight Clash Heads 12-product Fight Card. Competition in the graphics chip market is expected to be pushed to a new high of intensity in the second quarter as Nvidia and ATI Technologies plan to roll out a total of 12 products.

Changes in Store for Next Windows. An early test version of the OS hints at radical changes in file management and search features.

Cautious IT Spending Predicted for 2003. IT spending is expected to grow slightly in 2003, according to two new reports released Monday, as technology buyers grapple with a continued economic downturn and the prospect of a U.S.-led war with Iraq.

No Price Increase for Windows Server 2003. The list price for Windows Server 2003 will be identical to pricing for its predecessor Windows 2000. MS Aims at Linux With $399 Server 2003, Web Edition.  Get real!  Linux and FreeBSD do it better for nothing.

Macromedia Reports Critical Hole in Flash Player.    Affected version installed on 75 percent of PCs worldwide.

Chimp, Human DNA: Less in Common. Researchers used a powerful biological computer chip that can scan the entire genetic make up of an organism, that is, its whole genome.

Server In A Fly

Lotus Leaf Inspires Waterproofing Scheme

E-mail Server Flaw Could Spawn Next Slammer Worm

Monday, 3 March 2003

Intel Steps Outside the PC Box With Centrino. Intel already lets vendors use an ``Intel Inside'' logo. Now, the company will ``certify'' coffee shops, hotels and other wireless hotspots it deems compatible with the Centrino package.

Sony Unveils First Blue-Laser DVD Recorder. Sony will start sales next month of the world's first DVD recorder that uses blue laser light and can pack a two-hour high-definition TV program onto a single disc.  Discs hold up to 23 gigabytes of data.

IT Salaries Stable in '02, Higher for Government, Defense Jobs. Salaries for technology workers were stable in 2002, though IT workers in government and defense saw average gains of 7%.

January Chip Sales Fall 2.4%. While January's global semiconductor sales fall, SIA sticks by its estimate for near 20 percent growth in 2003.

RAID Chip Price War to Erupt With Intel’s New ICH5R. A price war is looming in the RAID chip market, as Intel is set to launch its RAID-enabled ICH5R south bridge chips shortly this month and other chipset designers such as VIA Technologies and Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) are also planning to introduce similar products later this year.

2.5 GHz PowerPC 970? (CPU). IBM has raised its previous estimate and is now specifying the chip will run at a range of frequencies between 1.8 GHz and 2.5 GHz.

Micron Launches Its First Megapixel CMOS Sensor. Specifications point to CCD quality.

China Plans Three-phase Moon Exploration. It could begin by 2005, say officials, who also hint that the motivation for the missions is to mine the Moon's resources.

Index