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Tech News for Friday September 22nd 2000

New mobile modem hits download speeds of 128 kbps.
Posted: 09/22/2000     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Before DSL and cable modem users start emailing me about "what's the deal" they had better remember the days when they too were cursed with 45 kbps connects via modem. Also remember that this modem is wireless.

Wireless Internet access provider Metricom today launched a broad offensive to boost adoption of its service for mobile PC customers.

Metricom has debuted its speedier service in six new cities: Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix and New York. The slower original version was available only in San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C., with service recently launched in Atlanta and San Diego as well. All cities now receive the faster service.

The newer service, also called Ricochet, delivers Internet content to PC customers at 128 kbps, comparable to an ISDN connection and several times faster than dial-up modems or the original Ricochet offering, which is only capable of 28.8-kbps downloads.

While most of the hype surrounding wireless Internet access concerns Web content for cellular phones and handheld devices, Metricom focuses on the laptop PC market. Instead of cramming a Web page onto a tiny handset display, the Ricochet service allows customers to use their computer desktops as they would in the office or while connected at home.

TOP

Micron Electronics and AMD shake hands.
Posted: 09/22/2000     Source: TechWeb  Added by: Kim Heise

Rest assured Intel's problems are just beginning although the stock drop will rebound in the next couple of days but several "Intel only" vendors are aligning themselves with AMD.  You can thank AMD and Cyrix for the low price on CPU's due to competition but unfortunately CPU companies are releasing processors without running through the full rigmarole of unit testing. Have you ever heard the expression: "We the clients - we the testers"? You heard it here first.

Micron Electronics has signed on to use the Duron processor from Advanced Micro Devices, leaving Dell Computer as the lone top-tier vendor to use Intel-based PCs.

Perhaps leery of its existing relationship with Intel Corp. (stock: INTC), Micron Electronics Inc. (stock: MUEI) will initially sell only its single Duron-based model, the Millennia RS250A, in retail stores such as Best Buy, Staples, and Radio Shack in Canada by the end of September.

Analysts, however, said Micron has nothing to fear, and that Intel's public acknowledgement of its mistakes has left the PC microprocessor market with its first real duopoly in ten years. A Micron spokeswoman also broadly hinted that future Athlon-based machines will be forthcoming from Micron and possibly its direct-sales website, Micronpc.com.

TOP

Dell Introduces New 17-Inch Flat Panel Display.
Posted: 09/22/2000     Source: Electic Tech  Added by: Kim Heise

This price of flat panel monitors (not to be confused with flat screen) are simply outrageous. Dell is trumpeting a new 17-inch flat panel display for $1,500.

Dell today announced availability in the United States of the Dell 1701FP, a high-performance dual-mode 17-inch (17-inch viewable) flat panel display that delivers bright, vivid images with minimal geometric distortion, priced at $1,449.

The launch of the Dell 1701FP, which replaces the single-mode 1700FP, parallels Dell becoming the leading supplier of flat panel displays in North America with a 14.8 percent share, according to DisplaySearch, a marketing research firm.(a) Dell is also one of the fastest-growing suppliers on a worldwide basis with a 183 percent increase in units shipped year-over-year, currently holding the No. 5 position with a 5.6 percent share.(a)

The Dell 1701FP, featuring SXGA-resolution (1,280 pixels by 1,024 pixels), is an excellent upgrade for financial, medical, industrial, governmental, educational environments or any mission-critical use where space, weight, power conservation and heat dispersion are important.

It features state-of-the-art technology with dual interface, active-matrix, thin film transistor (TFT) display, developed by Samsung's new brand Wiseview and powered by Pixelworks' award-winning ImageProcessor technology which instantly adjusts to display the industry's best image quality whether the monitor is connected to an analog or digital signal.

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Palm virus deletes apps.
Posted: 09/22/2000     Source: MSNBC  Added by: Kim Heise

With all the Palm pilots out in public I'm very surprised we haven't seen more of this earlier. Shortly all the antivirus companies are going to latch onto this bandwagon and release products to protect your PDA.

MSNBC reports on a a new Palm Pilot virus that disables programs on your PDA. The article notes that this is Palm's first virus but I believe there was another before this.

Most of this alert is somewhat media hype since PDA viruses cannot replicate themselves unless we one day have wireless PDA's in the mainstream market. Right now it appears only that Bill Gates can afford the wireless Palm PDA service.

Reports of the virus arrived at F-Secure’s laboratories in Finland Friday morning and although the company says the risk of infection is relatively low, it issued a warning advising Palm users to be vigilant.

TOP

Teen who admitted hacking NASA gets 6 months.
Posted: 09/22/2000     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

These days computer hackers are caught surprisingly quickly when you consider how many ways there are to hide one's "tracks" on the internet.

MIAMI--A teenager who admitted hacking into NASA computers that support the international space station has been sentenced to six months in jail.

The teen, now 16, pleaded guilty yesterday to federal charges and also admitted he had illegally entered a Pentagon computer system, intercepted 3,300 email transmissions, and stolen passwords.

The young man's name was withheld because of his age. The Justice Department said he was the first juvenile hacker to be incarcerated for computer crimes.

The teen was known on the Internet as "cOmrade" and will serve his sentence in a Florida detention center. He was 15 when the crimes occurred.

"Breaking into someone else's property, whether it's a robbery or a computer intrusion, is a serious crime," Attorney General Janet Reno said.

TOP

Nasdaq, other indexes, fall on warning from Intel.
Posted: 09/22/2000     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Just about everywhere you turn there is "buzz" about the stock market. What is very worrisome is that one single stock (Intel) can create such a major downshift in the stock market which I'm sure several investors are crying about (which is very appropriate for our weather today in Denver, CO).

The Nasdaq composite index dropped more than 100 points this morning as technology stocks across the board took a beating following yesterday's profit warning by chipmaker Intel.

At midmorning, the Nasdaq was down 109.64 to 3,719.23, recovering somewhat from a plunge of more than 200 points early on. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 89.62 to 10,675.90, while the S&P 500 fell 15.73 to 1,433.32.

TOP

OS X on Intel Petition.
Posted: 09/22/2000     Source: eFront  Added by: Kim Heise

Several users have teamed up to create a online petitioning site for signatures to get Apple to develop a OS X operating system for Intel based machines. I'm not sure how much attention this will get over at Apple but you may visit the web site here and post your petition. 

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Intel Shares Plummet After Revenue Warning.
Posted: 09/22/2000     Source: TechWeb  Added by: Kim Heise

It's simply ridiculous how volatile the stock market is and especially when investors jumps ship on a solid performing company. Intel did not post a loss - it just posted lower than analysts expected. Sometimes this sort of motion in the stock market is for traders to make plenty of money by jumping on excellent performers when the stock hits a low. The trick is to figure out when the stock has bottomed out.

Shares of semiconductor bellwether Intel plunged almost 20 percent in after-hours trading Thursday after the company warned that third-quarter revenue would come in below expectations.

Shares of Intel Corp. (stock: INTC), the No. 1 semiconductor maker, plummeted 12 35/64, to 48 15/16, in trading on electronic-crossing networks after closing at 61 31/64 on the Nasdaq.

Citing weak demand in Europe, the Santa Clara, Calif., company said it expects revenue for the third quarter to be about 3 to 5 percent above second quarter sales of $8.3 billion.

The company also lowered its forecasts for gross margins, to 62 percent from 63 to 64 percent.

The warning was expected to roil the markets on Friday.

Earlier this month shares of Intel slid more than 5 percent after a downgrade by U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray analyst Ashok Kumar. That downgrade, in which Kumar warned of "imminent oversupply," prompted a lively debate among analysts on the outlook for Intel.

TOP

NAPA Portable Video CD player.
Posted: 09/22/2000     Source: FastGraphics  Added by: Kim Heise

Use your CDR burner to record VCD movies of your favorite home movies and play them on a portable CD player that also plays MP3 audio. If you thought that is impressive - the player is under $200!!

Here's the opening paragraph from Fast Graphics:

Every once in a while you stumble across a product which is really innovative. The idea might not be all that exciting, but it's just that nobody has done it before, or not for the right price.
The Napa DAV-309 portable media player is a product that fits the above description. It's not exactly revolutionary, but a portable CD player that plays Audio CD, MP3 CD and Video CD has never been widely available, let alone for less than two hundred dollars.

TOP

Tech News for Thursday September 21st 2000

Slow News Day.
Posted: 09/21/2000     Source: N/A  Added by: Kim Heise

Today seems to be one of those unusually slow days unless I've missed something. There is plenty of news but little of interest. I will keep my eyes open for any news flashes. If you have any news information - you can forward it to me via email.

Hopefully Friday should see some more interesting news articles and there are bound to be a couple of those "bizarre invention of the week" posts.

NVidia moves to networking with X-Box chip.
Posted: 09/21/2000     Source: ebNews  Added by: Kim Heise

NVidia is currently the market leader in high performance 3D graphics in the PC market and now they are moving into the networking domain. Not sure if you are familiar with the upcoming Microsoft X-Box (slated for fall 2001) gaming console but NVidia has won the contract to deliver graphics processors and now networking chips for the much hyped box. Here's the story from ebNews:

Nvidia took a giant step beyond its roots in the graphics market Thursday by designing a communications companion chip for Microsoft's game console.

Nvidia Corp. (stock: NVDA) will also sell the chip to PC OEMs and and appliance manufacturers.

Following the path trod by companies like NeoMagic Corp. (stock: NMGC) and S3 Inc. (stock: SIII), Nvidia is leveraging its signal-processing technology into other areas, specifically a media communications processor (MCP): a sort of super-chip that combines traditional I/O, communications, and audio functions.

A specific MCP implementation, called the MCP-X, will be used for the X-box console from Microsoft Corp. (stock: MSFT).

However, the MCP architecture itself will be used for future PC and information-appliance components, executives said.

Nvidia, Santa Clara, Calif., is known primarily for its PC graphics chips, which consistently rank in the top tier of performance. Nvidia also landed a high-profile design win with Microsoft earlier this yea and will design a separate, future version of its graphics chip, called a graphics processing unit, for the X-box.

Japan's chip makers team up to develop 0.1-micron process.
Posted: 09/21/2000     Source: SemiBIZNews  Added by: Kim Heise

Several years back a major company was quoted as stating that we could never break the 0.25 micron barrier on processors due to the physical limitations of silicon. Now we have beaten that barrier significantly and a group of Japanese companies are gearing up for 0.1 micron die sizes.

Looking to jointly advance 0.1-micron process development, 11 of Japan's chip makers today announced an agreement to pool basic R&D efforts with an initial overall investment of $60 million.

The program includes virtually all major Japanese chip vendors: Fujitsu, Hitachi, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, NEC, Oki, Rohm, Sanyo, Sony, Sharp, and Toshiba.

The project has been more than eight months in gestation, coming on concerns by the Japanese chip industry that it could be falling behind in developing next-generation semiconductor technology. Initially the companies tried to solicit government aid to finance the project, but when that wasn't forthcoming, they decided to launch the effort with their own funding.

Global chip suppliers are now in the early stages of moving to 0.13-micron processing, and are expecting the next generation 0.1-micron node to come in another three years. New lithography tools --193-nm-wavelength argon fluoride systems and possibly even 157-nm systems -- will be needed to enable 0.1-micron design rules. Circuit design at such a fine geometry also presents a challenge, which the companies hope to address.

Tech News for Wednesday September 20th 2000

VIA: DDR Chipsets Announced.
Posted: 09/20/2000     Source: iXBT Labs  Added by: Kim Heise

VIA is making very strong inbounds into Intel's market dominance on motherboard chipsets. With VIA's announcement of new chipsets supporting DDRAM they are sure to have a winner. Now couple DDRAM (double data RAM) with a powerhouse CPU like the AMD Athlon or Intel's P4 and you have a speed king. Unfortunately the new VIA chipset will only support Pentium 3's at this time.

Finally! VIA Today announced its chipsets with DDR SDRAM support: VIA Apollo Pro266 and VIA Apollo KT266. The first one is designed for Intel Pentium III/Celeron and the second one – for AMD Athlon/Duron correspondingly. Of course, both chipsets support all the today’s most popular stuff: 133MHz FSB, AGP 4x, ATA/100 and provide up to 2.1GB/sec DDR266 SDRAM bus bandwidth. These are the first chipsets where VIA decided not to use a PCI bus to connect South and North Bridges. They are using a faster 66MHz V-Link bus instead. In fact, you should be already familiar with the basic features of both chipsets announced, however, we would like to list them once again, just in case:

• Apollo Pro266 supports Intel Pentium III/Celeron CPU; Apollo KT266 supports AMD Athlon/Duron CPU
• Apollo Pro266: 66/100/133MHz FSB; Apollo KT266: 100/133MHz FSB
• AGP 2X/4X
• Up to 4GB DDR266 SDRAM or PC133/66/100 SDRAM and VCM
• V-Link internal bus provides 266MB/sec bandwidth
• Advanced Communications Riser support (ACR)
• 6-channel integrated AC’97 audio
• MC-97 integrated modem
• Integrated 10/100 BaseT Ethernet controller or HomePNA
• ATA/33/66/100
• Apollo Pro266 supports dual-CPU configurations

Both chipsets were designed with one and the same VT8233 South Bridge. They will be manufactured with 0.22 micron technology and should be available for about $40. the first mainboards on new VIA chipsets are expected to be showcased on 20-21 September at VIA Technology Forum.

TOP

Sun to announce wireless Java partnerships.
Posted: 09/20/2000     Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise

The amount of wireless data transmission moving through the earth's atmosphere is going to increase exponentially over the next year. 

Sun is set to announce new wireless Java partnerships with Motorola, Nokia and others. Java devices promise to use less bandwidth and be more flexible.

Sun Microsystems Inc. on Tuesday will announce partners committed to shipping Java on wireless devices, along with its long-awaited Mobile Information Device profile.

Around 20 companies -- including Motorola, Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Siemens (Nasdaq: SMAWY), and Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) -- are expected to join Sun (Nasdaq: SUNW) in announcing Java-enabled wireless products to be delivered over the next couple of quarters.

Intel announces wireless architecture.
Posted: 09/20/2000     Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise

ZDNET reports that Intel has released a new wireless protocol used in conjunction with the StrongARM CPU processor. The day we can say good-bye to the mess of wires located directly behind your computer system would be a day of happiness. It does however appear that the move is also in preparation of newer 2.5GHZ and 3.0GHZ cell phones.

Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) introduced the Intel Personal Internet Client Architecture at the Intel Developer Forum in Tokyo on Wednesday. The architecture specifications are designed to accelerate the development of next generation Internet applications for wireless devices.

The specifications can be used in conjunction with Intel's StrongARM processor, which Intel anticipates has the proper amount of processing power for next-generation wireless applications, such as streaming audio and video.

The specifications are preparation for 2.5 and 3G cellular phones, which Intel expects will drastically change the mobile communications habits of users. Phones are not expected in the U.S. for another two years. 

Senator Hatch Disapproves of Government Stance on Napster.
Posted: 09/20/2000     Source: eFront  Added by: Kim Heise

I fully support the decision or the idea of less government - especially in the business world. If the government is trillions of Dollars in debt what do they know about running a business. Senator Hatch's response to Napster should come as no surprise.

In what may be a surprising announcement to some, if not all persons in the United States, renown Senator Orrin Hatch has stated publicly that he refuses to endorse the DOJ stance on Napster. Acording to the Newsbytes report, Senator Hatch sent a letter this week to the federal district appeals court expressing his distaste for the way things are going, saying "Given the importance of the issues to be decided, I think it important that the Court be under no misapprehension that the brief (filed by the Justice Department's Civil Division and two other agencies) necessarily expresses the views of the Congress in this matter." The DOJ quickly declined to comment on the matter.

Microsoft releases TweakUI 1.33
Posted: 09/20/2000     Source: Microsoft  Added by: Kim Heise

At last Microsoft has released an updated version of TweakUI for Windows 95/98, Millennium, NT and Windows 2000. TweakUI is one of least know little utilities that Microsoft post on their web site (if you do major searching) that allows you to tweak all those little know features under Windows.

Please bear in mind that if you download and install the program it is unsupported by Microsoft. This means if you get in a bind you are on your own.

For more information and download locations visit this link.

Pentium 4 Pricing & Launch Date.
Posted: 09/20/2000     Source: The Register  Added by: Kim Heise

I've never been able to figure out how the team over at the Register obtain their information. The information is released very early and is mot often very accurate. The Register reports the pricing and speed of Intel's next cash cow called "Willamette" or Pentium 4.

Not to damper all the spotlight on the Pentium 4 but there are several items to consider before upgrading. Firstly, you need a new motherboard to support the new CPU which are currently generation 1 motherboards which should make any hardware "pundit" nervous. 

Secondly the choice of using RAMBUS or SDRAM or even DDRAM has not been made overly clear which would have a MAJOR impact on performance and cost. It would be wise to wait for later generation motherboards that supports the speedier DDRAM memory to take full advantage of the upgrade. 

Lastly let us not forget the debacles from the past with buggy first generation CPU's from Intel and all the recalls in the past. 

If you are in the market for a new computer wait until Christmas because by then hopefully we will see "less murky waters".

Microsoft sets launch date for Windows "Whistler".
Posted: 09/20/2000     Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise

It appears Windows "Whistler" will be shipping as early as the first quarter of 2001 but the more exiting 64-bit Windows OS dubbed "Blackcomb" (rather odd name) will not ship until the later half of 2002. I suspect that by 2002 64bit computer hardware (x864 based) will be more readily available and then the new 64bit OS will be much of a blessing if you are a major Windows user. Let us not forget the current 64bit OS pioneers such as Solaris, HP and Linux (not to mention several others) having been around for at least a year.

Here are some highlights from the ZDNET article:

The product: Microsoft's "Whistler," a Windows 2000 successor. The goal: To go gold on April 18. The prognosis? Possible, but unlikely, given Microsoft's history of problems with hitting delivery dates, as well as the spotty quality of the release of Build 2257, the latest alpha release to find its way into the hands of testers outside Microsoft. As Microsoft continues to sign up beta testers for its next-generation Windows product, it is updating its self-imposed delivery timetables and design points. If all goes according to plan from here on out, Microsoft is planning an Oct. 11 Beta 1 release, a Dec. 6 Beta 2 due date and an April 18 release-to-manufacturing date for Whistler, according to sources who claimed to have seen a copies of internal timetables.

All Microsoft is saying publicly at this point is that it intends to release Beta 1 in October and ship the final Whistler product in the second half of 2001. According to an internal Microsoft e-mail message dated Jan. 1, 2000 and viewed by ZDNet News, Microsoft's delivery timetable has lengthened modestly since the start of the year. In January, Microsoft was aiming to deliver Whistler Beta 1 in July, Beta 2 in mid-October, and the gold code on Feb. 1, 2001.

Whistler is designed to show off some of the preliminary user-interface work that Microsoft is doing under the guise of its .Net strategy. But most of Microsoft's .Net Windows enhancements won't debut until the company ships Whistler's successor, code-named Blackcomb, which is currently expected in the latter half of 2002. The primary goals for Whistler -- which will come in a variety of consumer and business flavors, in both 32- and 64-bit packages -- include providing customers with incremental benefits in usability, reliability and deployment.

Tech News for Tuesday September 19th 2000

Hitechbits celebrates one year anniversary.
Posted: 09/19/2000     Source: N/A Added by: Kim Heise

I can't believe that it's been over one year since this web site was launched. I've actually managed to keep the site free from annoying pop-up windows, sound/animation and other time/bandwidth wasting features.

Thank you for being patient and hanging in with me while I went through multiple changes to the site. I would like to keep the site simple and straight to the point so hopefully you won't be seeing too many "flashing lights" in the future.

Future plans are for weekly articles discussing the weeks current events but I will have to see if I can squeeze that in between work and home life.

Intel Foster To Support DDR.
Posted: 09/19/2000     Source: The Register Added by: Kim Heise

The Register is reporting that Intel is planning on releasing a chipset that supports DDRAM memory. After all the "hoopla" with RAMBUS, Intel has decided to go the smarter route. I'm sure RAMBUS Inc. is not very pleased to see the addition of DDRAM support to Intel's upcoming chipset. 

Foster, the server version of the Pentium 4, and which is expected sometime in the first half of next year, will now support double data rate (DDR) memory, although Rambus memory still remains something of an option for high end workstation platforms. Foster has essentially the same core as the Pentium 4 but utilises some features to enable four way symmetric multiprocessing. For some time, some pundits have expressed puzzlement that Intel successfully sold Pentium III Xeons for a price premium over Pentium IIIs, although the chip technology of both were for all practical purposes, identical.

Now it appears that Intel may perform the same miracle of marketing with the Pentium 4 and its big brother Foster, as it appears that it is a matter of switching four way processing and other undocumented features on in the server chip, and leaving the lights off in the desktop processor. Intel will conjure the four way SMP bunny out of its marchitecture hat by value adding support including network switching, Infiniband, and high levels of DDR functionality. The IBM-Sequent team and Intel's chums at Micron and at LSI Logic are independently evaluating DDR platforms, suggesting a high level of interest in this memory solution for the server market.

Congress Set To Remove "Internet Tollbooth".
Posted: 09/19/2000     Source: TechWeb Added by: Kim Heise

TechWeb reports that congress has agreed to pull the plug on the fees local telephone companies had to pay in order to carry internet traffic. I wonder if this translates into cheaper internet access for consumers....hardly.

WASHINGTON - A U.S. House panel on Monday approved a measure that could eliminate billions of dollars in fees large regional telephone companies pay annually to carry consumer Internet traffic.

The House Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications approved by voice vote a bill that would eliminate a charge one phone company must pay to terminate a call on another company's network, including Internet traffic which is not often returned.

ING Barings analysts recently estimated that big regional telephone companies like SBC Communications Inc. together spend roughly $4 billion annually paying fees that are not reciprocated.

The measure “corrects an unintended consequence of the '96 Telecom Act that harms consumers by placing a tollbooth to the Internet and reduces competition in the local exchange market,” Gary Lytle, interim head of the U.S. Telecommunications Association, said in a statement.

Microsoft, others to develop Windows CE for cars.
Posted: 09/19/2000     Source: ZDNET Added by: Kim Heise

Just think you will now need to also keep upgrading the computer hardware in your car every three months and can you imagine driving 60mph down your local free way and your onboard computer returns a "blue screen of death" when you press the brakes.

A unit of Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and five Japanese companies said on Tuesday they agreed to develop software for automobile computers, greatly enhancing the functions of car navigation systems.

Sun Micro to buy Cobalt in $2 billion stock deal.
Posted: 09/19/2000     Source: ZDNET Added by: Kim Heise

Just an FYI for those of you who are also watching the corporate giants swallowing up every company in site.

Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) said on Tuesday it would buy Cobalt Networks Inc., a supplier of server appliance products, in a $2 billion stock deal.

Keep checking back with ZDNET for more details.

Tech News for Monday September 18th 2000

Cell phone flaw opens security hole.
Posted: 09/18/2000     Source: ZDNET Added by: Kim Heise

This would be one of those rare occasions I would love to hack into someone's cell phone and tell them to hang up and watch the traffic. Unfortunately it looks like the security hole only affects global mobile cell phones.

A design flaw in the protocol used in global system for mobile communication cell phones could allow eavesdropping.

Your cell phone may be multilingual -- and that could be detrimental to your privacy. Computer security researchers said a design flaw in the protocol used in global system for mobile communication cell phones could allow eavesdropping. The trick: Just make the cell phone think it's somewhere else.

Red Hat's Second Quarter Beats Expectations.
Posted: 09/18/2000     Source: TechWeb Added by: Kim Heise

Go for it Red Hat! We need all the competition we can get and it's only good news for the  user who can hopefully look forward to lowered costs for operating systems.

Linux operating system distributor Red Hat Inc. on Thursday reported a second-quarter loss that beat estimates by a penny, as demand for the operating system seen as an alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows continued to climb.

For the fiscal second quarter ended Aug. 31, Red Hat said, excluding one-time items, it lost $1.9 million, or 1 cent per share, compared with a loss of $4.3 million, or 6 cents, a year earlier.

Wall Street analysts had expected Red Hat (stock: RHAT), Durham, N.C., to report an operating loss of 2 cents per share, according to research firm First Call/Thomson Financial.

Shares of Red Hat were traded at $25 1/2 in after-hours trading on the Instinet brokerage system, up from its closing price of $25 1/4.

Upcoming Sony Notebook Includes Video.
Posted: 09/18/2000     Source: TechWeb Added by: Kim Heise

It is just simply amazing what laptop manufacturers can fit on a single portable device. Just imagine sitting on a plane conversing via video and audio to a business colleague or a family member who is sitting somewhere across the world.

Sony Corp. has proposed a new form of Vaio portable PC for an upcoming "personal cast" era in which consumers will begin to broadcast programs by themselves on the Web.

VaioGT is a combination of video camera and compact Windows PC. The prototype PC is approximately A5 size with an LCD display and a full-function video camera.

The display and the video camera are not detachable, but they rotate to give users the best shooting position.

Sony (stock: SNE) is already marketing the Vaio C1 series of portable PCs with built-in cameras for video e-mailing, but the picture size and resolution is limited to less than QCIF.

VaioGT will have full video shooting capability of DV or MPEG2 resolution. Video footage will be directory-recorded as Windows files on the PC.

"We will decide the detailed specifications such as file format and compression format for marketing sometime at year's end or early next year," said Keiichiro Shimada, senior general manager of Sony Information Technology Co. in charge of notebook PCs. "By proposing a new lifestyle, we want to expand the PC market".

Net2Phone, Cisco team on voice-over-Net software.
Posted: 09/18/2000     Source: CNET Added by: Kim Heise

You can be rest assured that the "baby Bell" companies are getting very nervous over this voice-over-Net technology. Hopefully soon all you need is your broadband connection for cable TV, phone and internet access. This means you can pick and choose from a multitude of ISP's and not be stuck with one single phone company for your service.

RK, N.J.--Net2Phone today said it will form a new company, backed in part by networking equipment giant Cisco Systems, to sell network management software used in technology that allows phone calls over the Internet.

Cisco, which has taken a minority stake in the new company, called Adir Technologies, will jointly market the new network management platform to its Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) customers.

Such software, which is used to analyze the health, capacity and other functions of networks, has been commonplace in circuit-switched networks. But the companies say this is the first offering of such software for VoIP networks.

Palm Charging for OS 3.5.
Posted: 09/18/2000     Source: eFront Added by: Kim Heise

When I saw this news clip over at BetaNews/eFront that was originally reported by the New York times my blood started to boil. Don't get me wrong because I love my Palm Pilot just as any other user but I feel they are overpriced. If you compare the latest Color Palm (IIIc) feature for feature to any of Compaq or HP's new CE machines then you would see why.

Microsoft uses a similar marketing tactic because they also control a market share. 3COM should not be charging for the OS upgrade but I will be forced to purchase the upgrade if I want to be able to use future products for the Palm PDA.

Palm Computing is planning on charging users who want to upgrade to the new OS 3.5, according to the NY Times. PalmOS 3.5 was debuted last February and the company told Palm owners that, as always, a free update would be available shortly. However, Palm Computing has changed this policy and plans to charge less than $20 USD for the update, citing significant software enhancements. Palm will also announce an Internet Kit, a version of OS 3.5 with Internet software, for under $50 USD. Palm developers can currently download OS 3.5 free of charge.

WinME breaks 3rd Party software compatibility.
Posted: 09/18/2000     Source: CNET Added by: Kim Heise

CNET reports that various Windows software developers have not adopted some of the changes to be fully certified under Microsoft's new Millennium OS and are thus creating major incompatibles.

I just updated my home PC with Windows Millennium and had serious problems getting the SoundBlaster Live card to work. My PC would simply "freeze" when I made any attempt to reboot after installing the most recent Live! drivers. Thankfully some friendly user on the Creative news server showed me how to "fix" the problem until new drivers were available. Other than that I have had no problems what so ever.

But these changes essentially break a slew of applications from companies including McAfee.com, Symantec, Adaptec and Quarterdeck, Microsoft has confirmed.

Windows Me, which is considered a fairly minor update to Windows 98, focuses on three other areas in addition to system reliability: digital media, better Internet support and new home-networking features.

"We did a couple of things with Windows Me that really helped solve a bunch of other issues but ended up creating temporary issues with eight applications," said Greg Sullivan, product manager for Windows Me at Microsoft. "The good news is virtually all of them have updates available, or will shortly."

Basically, the problems are caused by a new feature in Windows Me: System File Protection. This feature "prevents core files from being overwritten," according to Sullivan. In the past, many outside applications overwrote certain system files, an action that Microsoft says results in a more crash-prone PC.

By eliminating the ability to overwrite system files, Windows Me is less likely to crash, Sullivan says. But some application developers have not yet updated their programs to recognize this change.

It should stand to reason that it is unwise to use applications that modify/optimize the operating system until you receive fully certified WinME version.

Philips New Sound Cards
Posted: 09/18/2000     Source: VR-Zone Added by: Kim Heise

I would have never guessed Philips was planning on entering the PC audio market but it does make some sense since the company does develop major audio components. The PC market is in desperate need of some competition towards Creative Lab's audio products.

Philips Consumer Electronics is introducing three new sound cards to bring an enhanced multi-entertainment experience to the PC. The new lineup includes: Rhythmic Edge(TM) (3D stereo), Seismic Edge(TM) (quad surround) and Acoustic Edge(TM), the industry's first PCI audio accelerator enabling 5.1-channel playback of games, music and movies. While current industry technology limits 5.1-channel output to DVD content, the Acoustic Edge(TM) breaks this barrier by converting all types of media into 5.1 channel output and enhancing DVD movies, allowing a realistic home theater experience from the PC.

The Acoustic Edge sound card is powered by Philips Semiconductors' Thunderbird Avenger(TM) - SAA7785 PCI audio chip, delivering best-in-class PC audio hardware acceleration for realistic audio, with minimal CPU utilization. This results in higher graphic frame rates and improved system benchmarks, providing smoother, more consistent audio playback without taxing the overall system. The Rhythmic Edge and Seismic Edge are both powered by Philips Semiconductors' Thunderbird Q3D(TM) - SAA7780 PCI audio chip. All three sound cards utilize QSound Labs' patented algorithms developed for speaker playback, eliminating the need for the cross-talk cancellation that burdens other solutions.

Additionally, the sound cards offer the industry's broadest 3D API support. This extensive compatibility includes DS3D(TM), EAX(TM) 2.0/I3D Level 2 (Acoustic Edge), EAX(TM) 1.0 (Seismic Edge and Rhythmic Edge), and A3D(TM) 1.0. With the highest concurrency in the industry, the Acoustic Edge reaches up to 96 simultaneous 3D streams for a broader range of audio sounds, which also makes the audio output sound more realistic. Additionally, it supports 256 DirectSound streams, up to 576 Wavetable voices for MIDI music synthesis and offers an integrated game port for analog and digital joysticks. Equally impressive for the stereo and 4-channel sound card categories, both reach up to 64 simultaneous 3D streams and support 128 DirectSound streams and 576 Wavetable voices.

Philips Rhythmic Edge and Seismic Edge are scheduled to launch in September 2000, at $49.99 and $79.99 respectively. Philips Acoustic Edge will launch in November 2000 for $99.99.

VIA Samuel2 CPU Details.
Posted: 09/18/2000     Source: iXBT Labs  Added by: Kim Heise

Via will be releasing a new processor dubbed "Samuel2" to compete with Intel and AMD. Via had planned to launch the new CPU this September but it appears to be early next year before the chip will become available in limited quantities. It's far to early to tell how much the CPU will impact the PC market but hopefully it promotes major price drops in light of new competition.

VIA has given up its great ambitions concerning the Samuel2 CPU. Just in case you forgot: VIA had promised to launch it in September and to increase its working frequency up to 1GHz by the end of the year.
However, the real state of things appeared quite different. The sampling date has been moved to December and the availability – to January. As for the clock frequency, Samuel2 will support 650-800MHz in the first half of next year since it is primarily aimed at the low-cost PC market.

Nevertheless, VIA will be able to increase the clock frequency of Samuel2 CPU easily if necessary, because 0.15micron technology it will be manufactured with features great potential. Samuel2 will be used in Socket370 and unlike its predecessor, Cyrix III, will feature 64KB integrated L2 cache and en enhanced FPU. These enhancements are supposed to help Samuel2 catch up with Intel Celeron in terms of performance.