Tech News for Friday November 12th
1999.
Cisco To Acquire Cable Networking Firm.
Posted: 11/12/99 Source: TechWeb
Added by: Kim Heise
Cisco keeps making some very smart
moves and the latest move is to
enhance its broadband offerings. Cisco Systems today announced plans to acquire
V-Bits, a privately held cable networking supplier, in a $128 million stock
transaction.
Microsoft, RadioShack in surprise deal.
Posted: 11/12/99 Source: CNET
Added by: Kim Heise
This story has set the news ablaze
yesterday and it appears Microsoft is not standing still while the battle rages
on with the DOJ. Here's the story directly from CNET:
Microsoft and RadioShack have formed an e-commerce alliance to promote
high-speed Internet connections and other services, a surprise move aimed at
revitalizing the software company's Web strategy and boosting the consumer
electronics chain's revenues.
New version of OpenGL drivers released.
Posted: 11/12/99 Source: N/A
Added by: Kim Heise
A new version of GLSetup (v1.0.0.108) has been
released which contains the latest OpenGL drivers for your video card. If you
are unfamiliar with OpenGL it is a graphics API developed by SGI and is
currently used by a few games and CAD programs. Download the 50mb file here
or find out more information here.
AMD stock jumps 21% and 750mhz Athlon shipping soon.
Posted: 11/12/99 Source: N/A
Added by: Kim Heise
AMD's stock made a very impressive jump yesterday from
22 5/6 dollars a share to 28 1/2 dollars a share after the companies executives
posted news that they are supposed to break even over the next financial
quarter. Also a mover in the tech industry is the news that the 750mhz AMD K7
Athlon chip will ship before the end of the year. All this good news helped the
stock rocket but it will be interesting to see how many early investors are
going to pull out now to recover their purchase price which could make the stock
plummet.
Here's a quote from the "AMD Analyst Meeting
Article":
Even so, AMD has planned out an aggressive chip road map through the end of
2000. In the first quarter, AMD will release 800-MHz versions of the Athlon and
continue to manufacture more of its chips with copper, rather than aluminum,
wires, which is expected to boost performance.
By the middle of
the year, AMD will release "Thunderbird," a new version of the Athlon
that will contain, for the first time, an integrated secondary cache. Caches are
small memory reservoirs for processors. Although many chips have secondary
caches, performance goes up when it gets integrated into the same piece of
silicon. Intel recently integrated the cache into its "Coppermine"
Pentium IIIs.
Thunderbird will
run up to 1 GHz. Simultaneously, AMD will release a scaled-down, less-costly
version code-named "Spitfire." Although built on the same chip core,
Thunderbird and Spitfire will differ in speed, packaging, bus speed, and cache
size so that AMD can fit into as many market segments as possible, said Rob
Herb, senior vice president of sales.
By the end of
next year, AMD will debut a high-end chip code-named "Mustang" that
will work in powerful servers with two, four, and eight CPUs, he said. The
Mustang chips will come with as much as 2MB of cache built into the Mustang for
mobiles.
Tech News for Thursday
November 11th 1999.
Windows 2000 Release candidate 3 update.
Posted: 11/11/99 Source: BetaNews
Added by: Kim Heise
It appears the latest build posted by Microsoft to the
testers is not release candidate 3 after all. Microsoft did state that release
candidate 3 will be out shorty.
Gateway stops using AMD processors.
Posted: 11/11/99 Source: CNET
Added by: Kim Heise
This is unfortunate news that Gateway has decided to
stop selling systems using AMD processors. Makes you wonder if there was any
pressuring involved again.
RAMBUS or SDRAM?
Posted: 11/11/99 Source: 3DNEWS
Added by: Kim Heise
This very interesting article comparing RAMBUS and
SDRAM appears to sum up the pros and cons. Basically, the performance gains with
RAMBUS over SDRAM fluctuates between 0% and 2%. Not sure if that's worth it and
I can agree with the author that most users will sway towards the more
affordable solution rather than paying large amounts for performance gains of 2%
or less. Read the full article here.
Unofficial nPosted: 11/11/99 Source: N/A
Added by: Kim Heise
Various web sites have posted a link to the latest
unofficial nVidia Detonator drivers. You can download them here
but keep in mind that these drivers are unofficial and are most likely beta
drivers so use at your own risk. I am curious to see if the texture bug has been
fixed in this new version.
The Detonator drivers are only for TNT,TNT2,TNT2-Ultra and GeForce based video
cards.
Real Networks faces lawsuit over
privacy violation.
Posted: 11/11/99 Source: ZDNET
Added by: Kim Heise
Not surprised this happened but a
class-action lawsuit asks compensatory damages be awarded to purchasers of
RealJukebox over alleged privacy violations.
Tech News for Wednesday
November 10th 1999.
Windows 2000 release candidate 3?
Posted: 11/10/99 Source: Beta
News Added by: Kim Heise
Beta News reports that Microsoft has posted a new
build on the Windows 2000 beta web site and the company is expected to announce
later today that this is indeed release candidate 3. No information was given to
what has been added/fixed.
To much time on their hands......
Posted: 11/10/99 Source: Ars
Technica Added by: Kim Heise
Not really a "mover" in the tech industry
but very humorous anyway. Some people over in England have decided to try and
see how far they could "overclock" a 486sx 25mhz (dated from around
1993). The results are in and they were able (with the use of liquid nitrogen)
to clock the chip up to 247mhz. For more on this crazy project visit their web
site.
Be OS turning up the heat.
Posted: 11/10/99 Source: Ars
Technica Added by: Kim Heise
Anytime you are looking for some news regarding Be OS
visit the people over at Ars Technica. If you're not familiar with Be OS it's a
very impressive operating system like Microsoft Windows but it is much more
stable and requires far less hardware requirements. The catch: The OS needs more
support from third-party vendors.
Be has announced full Java VM (virtual machine) support and they have been
working with National Semiconductor on an Internet appliance device which will
reportedly be shown at Comdex next week. If you are an investor you may want to
take a look at Be since their stock is up 137% since yesterday.
Tech News for Tuesday November 9th 1999.
Asus AMD K7M motherboard update.
Posted: 11/09/99 Source: AMD
Zone Added by: Kim Heise
Here's a very interesting piece of information over a
AMD Zone regarding the delay in Asus's AMD motherboards due to pressure from
Intel. Read it yourself:
Friends,
We finally received a precious few K7M rev. 1.04 no-audio boards in from
distribution yesterday. This is the product we've been waiting for, and
planned on making standard equipment. Some of you even have our review
systems featuring an early rev of this board. ASUS has long been running
scared from Intel, and this product has been delayed because of it. Now it
looks like as a small VAR we may not even be able to sell it. The rumors
up on AMD Zone spurred me to ask ASUS point blank. Follow this thread
backwards and you'll see that they are mostly true. I hate to burn bridges
with them but they have been extremely unhelpful lately and I'm sick of the poor
support. I know several of you reviewers have already been provided with
this board directly from ASUS for end-user reviews. That kind of bait and switch
ticks me off. Feel free to publish whatever of this you feel comfortable
with.
Sincerely,
Kelt Reeves
Falcon Northwest
It sounds like the pressuring
tactics from Intel are true. The email above was sent from a computer
company (Falcon Northwest) to AMD Zone. Falcon Northwest builds custom
gaming rigs.
Diamond Viper II ship date.
Posted: 11/09/99 Source: N/A Added by: Kim Heise
The new Diamond Viper II video cards based on S3's
Savage 2000 processor will be shipping around mid-November at an estimated
street price of $200.00. Overall performance on this card is rather disappointing
since it will be shipped slower than was originally planned.
New breed of Virus unleashed.
Posted: 11/09/99 Source: MSNBC Added by: Kim Heise
I was on MSNBC's tech section when this article jumped
at me. Apparently there is a new virus called "Bubbleboy" that is
being transmitted via email and you no longer need to open the email to infect
your system! I'm not sure how they pulled this off but it only infects Microsoft
Outlook users. No mention of what the virus actually does.
AMD pumps up Athlon speed
to 1GHz for Comdex.
Posted: 11/09/99 Source: The
Register Added by: Kim Heise
AMD will be demonstrating their 1ghz K7 chip at the
upcoming Comdex. The 1ghz chip is based on AMD's new 0.18 micron process. Also
expected at Comdex will be AMD's announcement of the 750mhz and 800mhz K7.
Also keep watching for AMD commercials on TV starting this weekend.
Qualcomm unveils "High Data Rate wireless
data".
Posted: 11/09/99 Source: MSNBC
Added by: Kim Heise
This very exciting news for the tech industry but
Qualcomm have figured out a method of obtaining cable-modem speeds over a
cellphone. Image sitting on the bus and watching streaming video over your
cellphone or performing other high-bandwidth tasks.. These HDR phones offer
downloads speeds up to 2mb/sec.
No release date or cost for these phones were given.
Netscape Communicator 5.0 trial to be released
later this month.
Posted: 11/09/99 Source: BetaNews
Added by: Kim Heise
Over at Beta News they have a post from Netscape
stating the much delayed Communicator 5.0 will be available in trial form later
this month. The final is expected sometime in February 2000.
Update on the Asus AMD K7M motherboard
cancellation.
Posted: 11/09/99 Source: The
Register Added by: Kim Heise
The Register was able to find out more information
regarding the bullying by Intel on Asus to stop production/selling of their AMD
K7 motherboard. Basically the article talks about Asus denying that they are
being pressured by Intel to stop producing AMD motherboards.
Here's the quote from Asus:
"I have no comment about that [the K7M]. Nobody can talk about the K7. It's
a very sensitive topic, we don't want any employee to release any K7-related
information to anybody."
Tech News for Monday November 8th 1999.
Guillemot's DDR-DVI 32MB GeForce card available Nov
19th.
Posted: 11/08/99 Source: nv
News Added by: Kim Heise
Electronics Boutique is taking preorders on
Guillemot's Hercules 3D Prophet DDR-DVI 32MB GeForce card. EB World has a SKU
number and shipping date of 19-NOV-99 with a list price of $319.99 US. The DVI
connector enables you to attach pure-digital flat-panel displays such as the
SGI-made Radius Artica and Apple Computer's 22" Wide-screen Flat Panel
Cinema display.
The DDR version listed above is the one to get because it uses the new DDR RAM
which increases the performance on the card substantially over the standard
SDRAM version.
Asus to stop selling AMD K7 motherboards?
Posted: 11/08/99 Source: nv
News Added by: Kim Heise
I hope this news isn't true and that someone made it
up but it's been circulating on various web sites.
Apparently Asus has halted shipping on their AMD K7 K7M motherboard due to
pressure from Intel. If this is indeed the case the DOJ should be redirecting
their guns elsewhere.
Here's the clip:
"It came to me from a pretty good source in Taiwan, that ASUS will STOP
SELLING THE K7M Athlon mainboard very soon. It was directly told to me that this
comes under pressures from Intel."
RealPlayer 7.0 beta released.
Posted: 11/08/99 Source: BetaNews
Added by: Kim Heise
RealNetworks has released Realplayer 7.0 beta. Let's
hope they have fixed the "bug".
You can download it here
or order and download it here.
Abit to enter the 3D market.
Posted: 11/08/99 Source: Voodoo
Extreme Added by: Kim Heise
Saw this quick interesting note over at Billy's place
but Abit is going to jump into the 3D market. No mention of what chipset Abit is
going to use and I'll keep you posted as soon as I hear more.
ATI against nVidia.
Posted: 11/08/99 Source: Gamers
Depot Added by: Kim Heise
So you thought the video market is pretty simple
in that nVidia's GeFroce256 is the fastest video card on the market? Don't feel
bad because that's what I thought until this morning when my friend Lance
forwarded me this link from Gamers
Depot. Here's the news:
ATI has been able to pull a magic rabbit out of a hat called the "ATI Rage
Furry MAXX" which is basically a single video card with TWO Rage Furry
processors. (I'm not joking - the card has two fans on each CPU. Look at the
picture here.)
The card outshines the Creative Lab's GeForce 256 in speed and picture quality
for around $250. Not to mention the ATI card has superb DVD playback quality due
to it's build in DVD dedicated systems.
Take a look at some benchmarks using the latest AMD K7 processor here
and Celeron 500a benchmarks here.
The benchmarks show the new ATI against Creative Lab's GeForce 256.
We will watch this one closely....
Update: The card should be released December 1st 1999.
Industry is watching the Microsoft vs. DOJ shootout.
Posted: 11/08/99 Source: N/A
Added by: Kim Heise
I saw this morning that Microsoft's stock fell 5% and
I'm guessing it's due to all the nervousness surrounding the anti-trust deal
with the DOJ. Not worth holding your breath on this one since I doubt you will
see any major changes very soon. These battle tactics with lawyers take months
in and out of court so it will be sometime before anything happens.
In case you haven't heard but the DOJ has ruled Microsoft a monopoly.
More trouble with RealNetworks.
Posted: 11/08/99 Source: Wired
Added by: Kim Heise
Not sure if you recall but RealNetworks was secretly recording
information on what music users listened with their Real Jukebox software. Now
it also turns out that the RealPlayer is also recording what music you listen
and sends the information to a company server.
I hope someone makes an example out of this sort of unacceptable behavior. It's
funny to see how the company "spin-doctors" label this invasion of
privacy as a "bug".
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