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| Tech News for Friday August 11th 2000Aimster:
The Napster of Instant Messenger? The new service believes it
avoids the legal concerns surrounding Napster by just targeting AOL's Instant
Messenger users. But in doing so, Aimster also comes under the gaze of two powerful forces that have aggressively gone to court to defend their turfs: The recording industry, and America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) The free software download draws on AOL Instant Messenger's buddy lists to create groups that can share files through Gnutella's file-sharing technology. Gnutella is open-source file-sharing technology similar to Napster, which was developed by AOL's Nullsoft unit but now lives on indepedently. Aimster has been downloaded 4,500 times since its launch Tuesday, according to the company. AOL's Instant Messenger service has an estimated 40 million to 60 million users, with millions of people engaged in file sharing. Intel
preparing Northwood, Timna chips for 2001. The company is preparing to launch its Pentium 4 early in the fourth quarter and will follow the release with a number of processors for different product segments, according to sources. The chip will run at 1.4 GHz, Intel has said. Toward the end of the third quarter in 2001, the company will come out with Northwood, an improved version of the Pentium 4, according to Bert McComas, an analyst at InQuest Market Research. McComas examined Intel's most recent product road maps and posted an article about them on his company's Web site. Before that, in the middle of 2001, Intel will come out with Tualatin, a version of the Pentium III made on the 0.13-micron process, more advanced than the current 0.18-micron process, McComas said. The micron measurements refer to the size of certain features on the chip. By shrinking the features, a manufacturer can make the chip smaller as well as boost its performance. Along with being faster, Tualatin will also contain a larger secondary cache, a bank of memory close to the processor that boosts performance, according to one source. Tualatin Pentium IIIs will contain 512KB of integrated cache, compared to 256KB of integrated cache on current Pentium IIIs. Tualatin will also come with a 200-MHz system bus. The system bus serves as a data conduit between the processor and the rest of the computer. The current Pentium III system bus tops out at 133 MHz. Tech News for Thursday August 10th 2000Video
To Come To Wireless Devices. VastVideo and ActiveSky are betting there is a hot market for a video stream over wireless devices. The two companies are joining to provide VastVideo's library of instructional videos over the Internet to wireless devices and PDAs using ActiveSky's media player technology, allowing Windows CE, Pocket PC, Palm Pilot, and other devices to view small bits of video information. AMD
releases the x86-64 specifications. Can anyone explain to me why AMD's stock is so low? Anyway, AMD has released the specifications for the new 64-bit Sledgehammer CPU. SUNNYVALE, CA-AUGUST 10, 2000 -AMD today publicly released the x86-64(tm) Architecture Programmers Overview, the instruction manual the software community can use to begin incorporating x86-64 technology support in their operating systems, applications, drivers and development tools. AMD's x86-64 technology will first be supported in the family of processors codenamed "Hammer," planned to be announced at the end of 2001. Tech News for Wednesday August 9th 2000Handspring's
Visor Moves Toward Wireless Capability. Handspring, the maker of the Visor handheld computer, said Wednesday that Qualcomm has granted it a license for its digital wireless standard, extending the technology beyond telephones. Handspring (stock: HAND), whose Visor handheld computer uses the Palm (stock: PALM) operating system, will be able to develop wireless communications using Qualcomm's CDMA technology. In return, Qualcomm (stock: QCOM) will receive royalties on the sale of Handspring products. CDMA is the dominant wireless standard developed by Qualcomm for use in digital wireless telephones. CDMA technology takes information in a signal and spreads it over a wide bandwidth. Microsoft
abuzz over Web-enabled cell phone. Speaking at the software maker's Silicon Valley campus, Microsoft vice president Ben Waldman showed off the phone, as well as the recently released Pocket PC handheld, in a presentation centered on Microsoft's growing focus on gadgets and wireless Internet access. Stinger is Microsoft's code name for its family of so-called smart phones, a class of wireless phones with oversized displays and color screens designed for wireless Web access and conventional phone calls. The product has been in the works for two to three years and will be marketed by Samsung in the United States and Europe. Microsoft plans to get the Stinger into the U.S. market next year. Nintendo's
announces "Dolphin" on August 24th. This announcement may be too late to calm the Playstation 2 storm that is about to hit the US shores. Nintendo says that on August 24th, details will be revealed about its new and upcoming 128-bit gaming system, codenamed Dolphin. The system is expected to be released sometime in the year 2001, a bit later than its original expected launch of later this year. Tight supplies appear to be part of the delays, and the system is expected to start a "full-blown war" in the gaming industry according to ZDNet.Nintendo will also discuss two other new products, one dubbed Mobile System GB, which will allow consumers to connect their GameBoys to cellular phones. The other is GameBoy Advance, a 32-bit handheld gaming device with telecommunications functions built in. ReplayTV
uses Internet as remote control. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company said MyReplayTV is the "ultimate remote control" for the company's units, which record television programs to a hard drive, offering a tape-less alternative to the VCR. For average ReplayTV users, this means that when they realize it is going to be a late night at the office, they can send a message to their set-top box at home to record "Survivor." When they get home, the tribe, or what's left of it, will be waiting. The announcement comes just as a new study says that digital video recorders (DVRs) made by ReplayTV and rival TiVo aren't taking hold in the market. Micro-motors
powered by DNA. I can't say that I promise there will be article daily on the strange and unusual but at this point this trend has held fast. In an experiment that could help set the stage for future generations of miniaturized computers, DNA molecules have been engineered to serve as both the moving parts and the fuel for machines measuring mere billionths of a meter long. THE NEWLY REVEALED experiments, conducted at
Lucent Technologies’ Bell Labs and detailed in Thursday’s issue of the
journal Nature, involve creating “motorized tweezers” out of three strands
of specially constructed DNA molecules. Hitachi's
DVD Camera. While visiting Ars-Technica I saw they had posted an article on one of the first portable DVD-recorders on the market. See for yourself here. Tech News for Tuesday August 8th 2000Next-Generation
HSDRAM Is Out. Overclockers get ready for this one! I wonder if it's possible to push this new memory up to 200mhz. Not sure how the AGP bus is going to hold up at that speed.... Enhanced Memory
Systems (EMS) and Mushkin subsidiaries of Ramtron International Corporation
today announced the next generation of the Enhanced high-speed SDRAM (HSDRAM)
DIMM modules. The new modules operate at CAS2 latency and enable High-End gaming
customers to boost the memory bus speed of the Intel 815E chipset to 150MHz and
beyond resulting in a superior gaming experience. Netscape
6 PR 2 released. Did anyone ever get the first preview release to work? It was so slow on my system that I uninstalled it within a couple of minutes. I have not tested the preview release 2 and would hope there were some major performance enhancements. It's possible that for the preview releases there were debug routines in place and when those are removed in the final it should make a significant difference. Now that many of you have had a chance to try out the second preview release of Netscape's long awaited version 6, we are curious what you think. There have been reports of many install problems, including a very serve one in Windows forcing you to press cancel to even begin, and other bugs not found in corresponding Mozilla builds. Does this second preview give justice to Mozilla nightly builds or does it shame them? Let us know what you think below. Those who missed yesterday's release may download Netscape 6 PR2 for Windows or Linux. Microsoft
Reader Available for Download. As part of its new e-book promotion, and the beginning of the Microsoft branded e-bookstore at BarnesandNoble.com, Microsoft has announced the availability of Microsoft Reader free of charge from the Microsoft Web site. In addition to the software, major publishers have announced major e-book deals for consumers at bn.com. ClearType technology developed at the Redmond campus makes Microsoft Reader "clearly the best software for extended reading on any computing device." For more information visit the MS Reader Web site. Netscape
To Offer Patch For Security Hole. Netscape Communications, a unit of America Online, plans to make a patch available so that users can protect themselves from a glitch found in Netscape's browser software that can be used to let hackers view or retrieve files on a computer or network. Over the weekend, programmer Daniel Brumleve outlined on his website a security hole in Netscape's Java distribution, calling it Brown Orifice, that could allow access to local files after a user opens an e-mail or visits a website. "It's very serious because it's very straightforward to exploit," said Chris Rouland, director of Internet Security Systems' internal research and development Group, X-Force, of the Netscape glitch. "If a hacker implants this malicious Java code on a site, it can infect users. It can read the entire fileon a hard drive on the Internet, such as Quicken data, spreadsheets, and passwords." Blue
screen of death in Windows 2000. For those of you who tout Windows 2000 as the ultimate OS: In Windows 2000 Professional and Server, if you are using an application that uses the DLC protocol (data link control) when doing network communications, you may get a blue screen of death with this error message: “STOP(0x000000d1,0x00000008,0x00000002,0x00000000,0xf3d30e56).” The fourth parameter of your error message may differ. Microsoft says that when DLC buffer pool structure is initialized, there is one less element in the array than there should be. If the last element is accessed, you get the error. There is no fix yet. Intel,
Panasonic take aim at online piracy. The two companies said they have developed a three-part plan for protecting copyright material on personal computers and, more significantly, when it is copied for use in portable music players. The
announcement is the latest sign that collective efforts to create an audio
copy-protection standard are falling short. Both Intel and Panasonic--the U.S.
brand of Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial--are participants in industry
groups that have been developing anti-piracy tools, including the Secure Digital
Music Initiative (SDMI). That group has increasingly come under criticism
for falling behind schedule, leading to parallel initiatives. Some record
companies, for example, aren't waiting for SDMI and are moving ahead with their
own copy-protection plans. NorthPoint,
Verizon form broadband venture. NorthPoint, which was rumored to be planning a partnership announcement, is a provider of digital subscriber line (DSL) service, which allows existing telephone wires to carry ordinary phone traffic and high-speed Internet services simultaneously. The company's stock has recently flirted with its 52-week low, making it an attractive buy. Under the agreement, the two companies' DSL businesses will be combined to create a new company, carrying the NorthPoint name, that will aim to provide a broader set of services in the high-speed, or "broadband," market to consumers and businesses. NorthPoint will also recieve an $800 million cash investment from Verizon, the companies said. News of the deal boosted NorthPoint shares. Shortly after the opening bell, the stock rose $1.13, jumping nearly 8 percent, to $16.13 on volume of 1.9 million shares. Meanwhile, shares of Verizon were down $4.38, slipping 9 percent, to $43.50. Company banking on
sub-atomic position accuracy. Here's something new and unusual posted up on Ars-Technica: Nanowave is a company that promises sub-nanometer position measurement and machine control technology for all the new Nanotechnologists wanting to set up shop. A recent intrepid spin-off from MIT, Nanowave's Scanning Probe Position Encoder (SPPE) has incredible position resolution (~0.01 nm) especially considering it's large measurement range (up to 300 mm). Their repeatability is about 1 nm (they can move the device from one point back to the same point with a precision of about 1 nm). If true, this is really a tour de force in position measurement. The device has huge dynamic range. One way to think about this is to scale the numbers up so we can deal with them better. Say our resolution is approximately 1 mm. This means if we had a device with the dynamic range of a SPPE, we could pick a particular blade of grass in a field, measure something up to 190 miles (306 km) away and then come back to the same blade of grass. Spooky. Saw this on Nanodot. Microsoft
Begins Office 10 Beta Testing. Beta 1 of Microsoft Office version 10 was released to testers today. As the next step from Office 2000, version 10 of the software will incorporate many new features such as new formatting options, various Web parts components, and a new Web-based data storage feature. No word yet when the Redmond giant will ship this version to consumers, though the Mac version of the popular office suite is expected in October. Visit Microsoft for more information. AGP
Stability Trick. Apparently the cooling fan on your AGP video card can introduce some instabilities when you begin to overclock your AGP bus. SystemLogic shows a solution to this problem that I would have never considered. The trick is to use power from the motherboard (or PSU) instead of from the card. The reason is two-fold, to allow the card to use all the power from the AGP slot (as the power coming from the AGP slot is limited) and by removing a dc motor (the fan motor) from the same electric line as the card. You see a DC motor introduces 'ripples' to the line, the same line which is used by the card, by removing the DC motor from the line you improve the quality of the current used by the card, hence also improving stability of the card. New
SIS Demo 730S Chipset. SIS has released the specifications of their new AMD Athlon chipset. Rather impressive:
Tech News for Monday August 7th 2000Colorful,
cheaper Palms introduced. As previously reported, the m100 and VIIx will refresh the IIIe and the VII in the Palm (Nasdaq: PALM) product family. The Palm m100 will target mainstream buyers, selling for $149, the lowest introductory price on a Palm device. The new entry-level model will come with 2MB of RAM and a case that allows for interchangeable faceplates. The Palm VIIx will succeed the wireless-enabled Palm VII and will cost $449. The Palm VII will drop to $399. SiS
Announces Single-Chip Athlon Chip Set. Silicon Integrated Systems announced a single-chip graphics/core logic IC for the Athlon and Duron microprocessors designed by Advanced Micro Devices (stock: AMD). SiS, a Taiwan chip set manufacturer, said its new SiS730S combines both an integrated 2-D/3-D graphics chip and an AGP 4X graphics card slot. The chip set addresses up to 1.5 Gbytes of PC133 SDRAM, and contains an ATA-100 storage interface and six USB connections. SiS will manufacture the chip set at its own fab, the company said, adding that pre-production shipments will begin in September at $42 per unit in 10,000-unit lots. At
Home Subscribers Get Free Digital-Video Tools
. At Home Corp. [NASDAQ:ATHM] is encouraging Internet users to soak up some serious bandwidth by offering online video production and hosting tools to its subscribers. At Home (also known as Excite@Home) is giving out free software that consumers can downloaded and then use to capture and edit digital video. Users' video productions can then be uploaded to At Home servers for showing off online as streaming video. The software tools and video hosting are available to At Home customers who access the company's services as subscribers of cable-company or digital subscriber line (DSL) Internet networks and to registered users of At Home's Excite Web portal. The offering represents a partnership between At Home and Media 100 [NASDAQ:MDEA], makers of the IntroDV video-editing software. Media 100, which picked up the IntroDV software earlier this year when it purchased multimedia software company Digital Origin Inc., has created a free version of the software for the At Home service, which has been named IntroDV MovieMate. Cypress
0.15 Micron SRAM. Cypress began high-volume production in 1996 of its patented high-speed, low-power six-transistor (6T) cell at 0.5 micron (RAM3(TM)). 6T cells have subsequently become the industry standard. Cypress's investment in process technology research and development has consistently paid off since then. Cypress has optically shrunk its original 6T cell approximately every 20 months: 0.35 micron (RAM4(TM)) in 1997, 0.25 micron (RAM5(TM)) in 1999 and 0.2 micron (RAM6(TM)) earlier this year. RAM7 is being implemented in Cypress's Fab 4C in Bloomington, Minn. In addition to the 8Mbit SRAM, over 10 products are currently in design and will achieve first silicon this year. These products include specialty and other communication-oriented memories intended to continue Cypress's support for communications customers such as Lucent, Nortel, Cisco, and 3COM. Plans are also on track to rapidly convert existing products to the RAM7 process over the course of 2001. New
wrist watch runs Linux. International Business Machines Corp.said Monday that researchers are running the Linux operating system on a prototype wristwatch device, in a research test designed to show that Linux can be used as the basic software on the smallest devices. New
Camera from FujiFilm. If you are
looking for real optical zoom effect, then a new product from FujiFilm is
exactly what you need. A new FinePix 4900Z camera, featuring 6x optical zoom
combined with 3.75x digital zoom, can boast a maximum zoom of 22.5x. This camera
has a charge-coupled device (CCD) of 2.4 million pixels and "Super-CCD
Honeycomb," the company's proprietary technology of arrayed picture
elements in a honeycomb-like shape, which enables users to record picture
elements equivalent to 4.32 million pixels. Intel
To Can Slowest Pentium IIIs, Xeons. Intel (stock: INTC) is discontinuing several of its slowest Pentium III and Xeon microprocessors, a trend it has adopted to push its customers toward faster chips. In a note to customers, Intel said it is phasing out shipment of the 600- and 667-MHz Xeon microprocessors and the 500-, 533-, and 550-MHz Pentium III chips. Finals orders can be placed between now and November, the company said. Additionally, Intel will halt sales of the 533-MHz flip-chip Celeron, but only to OEMs, not distributors. Intel said demand for faster chips prompted the company to eliminate the older chips. The company reportedly had problems with third-party contractors in manufacturing flip-chip Celerons. Warner
Bros. Goes Wireless With PacketVideo. Warner Bros. will become the first major Hollywood studio to wirelessly distribute video encoded in MPEG-4, thanks to an alliance with start-up PacketVideo, which is providing the key compression, embedded software, and authoring tools. "Many people have assumed that technologies to distribute multimedia content over the wireless network are still a couple of years away," said James Brailean, chief technology officer and co-founder of PacketVideo, San Diego, Calif. "But the socket war for silicon vendors to deliver such multimedia functions on mobile devices is already heating up." After delivering their goods via digital satellite, digital cable, and the Internet, content owners "are now targeting the wireless market as the next big distribution outlet," said Brailean. Tech News for Friday August 4th 2000Weekly
Memory Price Guide. Planet Hardware has setup a weekly home page that reflects the changing RAM prices. Currently RAM prices are at a all time high. Each week Planet Hardware scours the net for the lowest prices on memory components for a variety of PCs.These prices are often promotions that are time sensitive, if you contact the vendor regarding these prices make sure you specify to them that they were obtained online. FCC
gives cautious thumbs-up to broadband market. Federal regulators today gave their yearly pronouncement on the state of the high-speed Internet: It's coming faster, but it's not there yet. The number of cable modem subscribers jumped by 150 percent in 1999, while high-speed telephone line services shot up 380 percent last year, the Federal Communications Commission said today. But that growth was still mainly in high-income areas, threatening to leave rural and inner-city neighborhoods behind, commissioners warned. "We see some encouraging trends," FCC Chairman William Kennard said in a statement today. "But the data in the report show, even at the aggregate level, that rural areas and low-income areas are much less likely to have access to advanced services." Apple
Sues Over Online Posting Of Trade Secrets. The complaint, filed in the Superior Court for Santa Clara County, Calif., seeks an injunction against further disclosure of Apple's trade secrets as well as monetary damages. According to the lawsuit, the unknown person - or persons - posted images of the dual-processor Power Mac G4 on to the Web back in February, way ahead of the July 19 launch. The
new Amiga. Ex/Current-Amiga owners may want to read this interview with the new Amiga president: The original Amiga computer was a major technological innovation in its time. Now, the Amiga is back. Bill McEwen, President of Amiga, Inc., and Fleecy Moss, VP of Development, interviewed by Daniel Robbins, give us insight into new Amiga and explain why it's one of the most exciting development platforms available today. S3
Diamond Close, FireGL Remains. I can't say this came as any major surprise because the company released such poor drivers and did a terrible job of marketing the new S3/Diamond video products. S3 today announced that it
has initiated the shutdown of its Diamond Multimedia graphics add-in board
business. S3 will continue to supply and support its OEM customers, channel
partners and end-users for the existing line of Diamond Multimedia PC graphics
add-in cards, but will cease development of follow-on products. Intel
planning to unveil 200mhz FSB Pentium III. The Register reports that Intel is about to pull a magic rabbit out of the hat to try and make AMD's life a little more difficult. Not sure what memory they plan to use since none of the current Intel chipsets support DDRAM and I don't believe RAMBUS can be clocked at 200mhz. Intel is also
working on members of the Pentium III family using .13 micron cores, and will
release processors with 200MHz front side buses (FSBs). Tech News for Thursday August 3d 2000
Ricoh
MP9060A Review. Planet Hardware reviews one of the first DVD/CDR-CDR/W drives.
Read the full review here. V2_OS
- What is It? Beta News reports on a new OS that is being developed. Here are some of the details: A new operating system is being developed at the V2_Lab (International Lab for the unstable media) that is completely written in 32-bit Assembler language. It has just recently been released open source, version 0.63.2a, and sent to developers around the world. The V2_OS Web site argues that it is the fastest and easiest installing OS on the market, and a perfect developing platform. This Rotterdam project runs from a floppy disk, so you can use it without damaging existing installations. For more information visit the V2_OS Web site. Toshiba
Launches High Capacity DVD-RAM Drive. A new DVD-RAM disk drive
with 4.7 Gbytes of storage space for single-sided DVD disks and a 9.4-Gbyte
capacity for double-sided disks is to be launched by Toshiba Corp of Japan. World's
smallest PC. Take a look at the world's smallest PC that will run Windows NT, Windows 9x or Linux. Here are the specifications: CPU: 66 MHz 486-SX (AMD Elan SC410)Main Memory: 16 MB SDRAM Video: 512K VRAM, Cirrus CL-GD6235 chip
Ethernet: 10BaseT (10 Mb/s twisted pair) 2 RS-232 Serial Ports (COM1/COM2), both 16550A Parallel Port: Bidir, EPP, ECP Floppy Port: header for standard 1.44MB drive Hard Drive: One Controller IDE Controller: And here's a picture:
Ericsson,
Red Hat To Go Beyond Cell Phones. Ericsson (stock: ERICY) has selected Red Hat (stock: RHAT) as a strategic partner to develop non-PC home communication products. Ericsson said it hopes the move will help it expand beyond cell phone handsets into a larger consumer electronics market. The agreement marks the first time that a major communications systems company has tapped Red Hat's embedded Linux and associated open source technologies. Under the agreement, Red Hat will provide embedded Red Hat Linux to drive the upcoming Ericsson-designed Web Pads or Web Phones as well as home basestations designed to function as home gateway units or home servers. Red Hat will also help Ericsson integrate Java into such home communication platforms. Tech News for Wednesday August 2nd 2000Verizon
Begins Testing Voice Over DSL. Verizon Communications has begun a technical trial of voice over DSL. The DSL technical trial involves Verizon (stock: VZ) employees in the Dallas area. The company said it expects to begin a market trial with selected small businesses in Texas later this summer, and to offer VoDSL commercially later this year. Lucent Technologies (stock: LU) and CopperCom are providing the infrastructure for the current trial. Verizon is using Lucent'ssystems integration solution for the project, along with Stinger DSL access multiplexers, which are capable of delivering both voice and data. CopperCom is providing gateways and integrated access devices that combine voice and data traffic into packets on a single DSL line. Cisco
Goes Mobile. Cisco Systems Inc. continued its recent spate of acquisitions Tuesday with an agreement to buy wireless software maker IPMobile Inc. for $425 million in stock. IPMobile specializes in third-generation networks, which Cisco believes will lead to new and innovative wireless data and voice services such as the convergence of Internet-related data services and mobile wireless services. IPMobile is also a developer of IP Radio Access Networks (IP-RAN) which will connect wireless base stations to the Internet in next-generation networks. RANs control and manage the radio networks between user devices and base stations while providing access to data and voice services. Dell
Goes Wireless. GoAmerica (NASDAQ:GOAM) Wednesday landed a deal with Dell Computer Corp. to provide wireless Internet access to U.S. customers. The agreement comes eight months after Dell's (NASDAQ:DELL) more venturesome business division made an equity investment in GoAmerica. Under the agreement, Dell will sell the Go.Web Internet service with every notepad, personal digital assistant and pager it produces. GoAmerica is a wireless
Internet service provider with more than 18,367 subscribers currently suing it
Go.Web portal. The portal's ability to work with any wireless platform, from
pagers to notepad computers, has made it a popular pick with investors. They
include Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT),
Ericsson LM Telephone Co. PlayWorks
DTT3500 from Creative. Creative announced a new High-End sound system – PlayWorks DTT3500. This is a complete set ready to work in every situation. It includes a Dolby Digital decoder/amplifier with two S/P DIF ports (coaxial and optical), analog four-channel In, digital port for Sound Blaster Live!, 6 speakers with the total of 80W (RMS) and a remote control unit. as you see, this system can satisfy the needs of all sorts of users, starting from a dedicated gamer and finishing with a home theater fan. AMD
"Mustang" specifications. AMD's new "Mustang" CPU based on the Athlon core looks very promising. Here's what's known:
Expect the new AMD "Mustang" sometime early next year to compete with Intel's Pentium 4. Even
faster CD-RW drives on the way. Elantec Semiconductor, Inc., a leader in
high-performance analog ICs, today announced the first product in a new higher
speed laser driver family that will enable higher CD read/write (R/W) speeds in
the high growth CD-R/W optical disk drive market. Cornerstone
Adds New 19-Inch Flat CRT. I usually don't post every single new hardware/peripheral release unless there is something unusual about it. Take a look at the price on this flat screen CRT!! FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 1, 2000--Cornerstone Peripherals Technology, Inc. (Cornerstone), manufacturer of high-quality computer monitors and business graphics controller cards, announced today a new 19-inch flat CRT monitor, the p1450, as an expansion to its professional product line at a factory-direct price of $475 available now at MonitorsDirect.com. Linux
powers new set-top box. The Internet Ready 7200 uses a National Semiconductor MediaGX processor, 16MB of flash memory instead of a hard disk, 32MB of RAM and has the ability to connect to the Internet via DSL, Ethernet or a modem. It uses a TV instead of a monitor and comes with Netscape's Web browser. Coollogic won't brand the boxes with its own logo but intends instead to let others put their monikers on the devices, the company said. NetFrontier is one such company. The company will offer the Coollogic boxes in mobile home communities, Coollogic said. Acer America also has licensed Coollogic's design for use in its Internet appliances. Coollogic is competing with several other companies, including Lineo and Red Hat, which today announced a partnership with Ericsson to power digital devices in the home. America
Online, Others Sued For Blocking E-Mail. Harris Interactive Inc. said it is namely targeting AOL and Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp.'s [NASDAQ:MSFT] HotMail for blocking Harris' e-mail from reaching registered participants who opt-in for online marketing research. Harris also is charging an antitrust complaint against Dulles, Va.-based AOL, which operates its own online market-research company called Digital Marketing Systems (DGS). "These ISPs are acting as censors or blockers from us communicating with people who agreed to talk to us," Harris spokesperson Dan Hucko told Washtech.com. And specifically, "AOL is using its monopoly to block us from fairly competing with its DGS." First
Ink-Jet Printed Full Color Light Emitting Polymer Display. The colour display achieves colour quality
equal to current liquid crystal display (LCD) technology and is comparable to
displays found in many portable computer products. Win2k
vs. Whistler - Benchmarks. As you know Microsoft will be releasing Beta1 of Windows "Whistler" which is the sequel to Windows 2000 sometime in October this year. Windows "Whistler" should be in the stores later next year. Anyway, TweakTown has benchmarked the current beta version of Whistler against Windows 2000 and the results are interesting. A few hardware techie sites around the World Wide Web have taken their own various looks and previews at Microsoft Whistler 2001 - a new OS from Microsoft based on the NT Kernel. One thing most of them have forgot was the inclusion of benchmarking results compared to current Operating Systems. So, we have taken the time to do some short benchmarking and testing with SiSoft Sandra to show the performance different concerning CPU Speed, CPU MultiMedia and Memory, compared to Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft "Windows" Whistler 2001. Keep in mind, we have an early alpha (build 2250) version of Whistler 2001 that will most likely not be the exact same upon the full retail release by Microsoft later next year, so benchmarking results will probably be different when that time arises. This short comparison article will tell us, mostly in pictorial form, how much faster (or slower) Microsoft Whistler 2001 is compared to Microsoft Windows 2000 - Will upgrading to Whistler 2001 sacrifice my performance? DDRAM
pricing. DDRAM (double data RAM) is the next memory upgrade for high speed desktop computers. I'm pleasantly surprised at how reasonable the DDRAM will be priced compared to the current 133mhz SDRAM. Expect DDRAM to take hold on the PC industry sometime later this year. DDR PC1600
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