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AMD tops target, but says sales will slow.
Posted: 04/20/2001     Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Just some good news for consumers wishing AMD more good fortune and plenty of sales. Regardless of your stance towards either Intel or AMD one has to admit that all this competition is what is driving down the prices and increasing the performance of new processors.

The only drawback is that the intense competition has forced the two processor giants to prematurely release chips more rapidly without fully ironing out last minute problems.

Advanced Micro Devices reported first-quarter earnings Wednesday that topped analyst expectations but warned of a sales drop in the current quarter.
The company reported income of $124.8 million, or 37 cents a share, on revenue of $1.19 billion, excluding charges. Income was down 34 percent from the same quarter last year, when the company reported income of $189.3 million, or 55 cents a share.

Analyst polled by First Call had been expecting a profit of 33 cents a share on revenue of about $1.13 billion.

AMD's sales were up 9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2000, thanks in part to strong sales of its Athlon and Duron chips. However, the company warned that sales for the second quarter could be down as much as 10 percent.

The Department for Energy Technology at the Fraunhofer-Institute, cradle of MP3 and a kind of German MIT, presents in Hanover, Germany, solutions to power your PDA without the need to recharge the battery. They soon could apear on the mass market, as Casio, Siemens and others have their hands on it.

The problem was the very little space in the casing of a cellphone or PDA to allow integration of another source like fuel or solar cells, Fraunhofer researchers told ZDNet. And it's a race against time: As mobile electronic devices shrink in size and at the same time become more powerful, manufacturers of solar cells continue to raise the efficiency of their products. There are special types where an efficiency of almost 25 percent has been achieved - but they are still much too expensive for the mass market.

Aviation nears the hypersonic era.
Posted: 04/20/2001     Source: MSNBC  Added by: Kim Heise

MSNBC reports that NASA will be executing some tests on a new hypersonic plane that travels roughly 10 times the speed of sound.

This would make the trip from New York to Paris seem like a quick hop from one continent to another.

Almost a century after the first airplane flew, NASA is laying the groundwork for the next generation in aviation: hypersonic aircraft that could zoom on the edges of space at 10 times the speed of sound. A test vehicle could break the airplane speed record next month.

<SNIP>

The first flight of the pilotless X-43A hypersonic plane — part of NASA’s $185 million, six-year Hyper-X program — will open the door just a crack. During the first test, scheduled for mid-May, the 12-foot-long craft will fire its experimental engine only briefly, then sail toward a watery grave in the Pacific.
But that short burst would be at speeds above Mach 7 — that is, about 5,000 mph, or seven times the speed of sound. That spurt would break the record for a fixed-wing aircraft: Mach 6.7 or 4,520 mph, set by a rocket-powered X-15 research plane in 1967.
NASA says later test flights could achieve speeds of Mach 10, or roughly 7,200 mph.

Samsung plans to develop 4-GB DRAM.
Posted: 04/20/2001     Source: Korea Times  Added by: Kim Heise

A team of top Japanese semi-conductor companies are planning to band together to develop 4GB DRAM chipsets.

Samsung Electronics, the world's largest memory chipmaker, announced yesterday a deal to jointly develop next-generation semiconductor technologies with 11 Japanese chip manufacturers, which will serve to strengthen its position in the global market.

This five-year, 84 billion yen ($675 million) research and development project was launched to initiate new technologies for increasingly intricate semiconductor circuitry, a Samsung spokesman said.

The project is designed to develop high-end materials and fundamental technology needed to make chips with design rules at widths of below 0.1- micron meters, the company said.

Called ``Advanced Semiconductors through Collaborative Achievement (ASCA),'' Samsung is the only foreign partner in the project, and that is also interpreted as meaning that the Japanese semiconductor industry has recognized Samsung's chip manufacturing technology.

Scientists teach computer to speak.
Posted: 04/20/2001     Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise

This is impressive news about a computer appropriately called "HAL" which has the ability to learn the spoken language.

The company behind this work, Dutch-based firm Artificial Intelligence (AI), caused a stir in technology circles recently by claiming to have developed a computer that had learnt language to the level of a 15 month-old child. At a research facility in Tel-Aviv, Israel, Artificial Intelligence (AI) demonstrated its computerised toddler -- named HAL -- for the first time and revealed that it is betting million pounds on the scheme.

For such ambitious goals, HAL's design is surprisingly simple. Running on top of Windows 2000, HAL is little more than handful of simple learning algorithms. But from these simple building blocks, HAL's creators hope to generate a computer capable of holding its own in conversation.

Past attempts have typically involved programming computers with basic rules of language, a technique that has always fallen short of providing stimulating and, at times, even comprehensible conversation. This may be because, according to linguistic theorists, the rules of language are virtually impossible to pin down, existing only in a state of flux.

In contrast to these previous attempts, HAL is designed to learn language for itself. Simple learning algorithms allow HAL to mimic different patterns of text characters. The real innovation occurring at AI, however, is that a child psychologist interacts with HAL, correcting mistakes and nurturing correct use of words and sentences.

At the heart of the learning algorithm is the interplay between the computer's prior experience and its ability to predict what output will be rewarded. The approach is taken from Bayesian statistical analysis; an area of mathematics that involves calculating probabilities according to newly accumulated knowledge. Andrew Blake, a mathematics and electronics researcher at Cambridge University, describes this as "a very strong field in AI at the moment".

NVIDIA completes its purchase of 3dfx Graphics assets.
Posted: 04/20/2001     Source: Yahoo  Added by: Kim Heise

We can now officially say good-bye to 3dfx and hope that NVIDIA will take the lessons from the former company close to heart.

For those of you who also remember seeing the original Voodoo1 3D accelerator for the first time will most likely feel sentimental about this news post. The Voodoo1 was the first true 3D accelerator that made the first huge step in computer graphics. Even today's upcoming and insanely priced GeForce3 simply is adding more performance plus additional hardware support 3D features.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 19, 2001--NVIDIA® Corporation (Nasdaq:NVDA - news) announced today that its wholly owned subsidiary, NVIDIA US Investment Company, completed its purchase of certain graphics assets of 3dfx Interactive (Nasdaq:TDFX - news).

On December 15, 2000, NVIDIA US Investment Company, NVIDIA and 3dfx signed an asset purchase agreement for NVIDIA US Investment Company to purchase from 3dfx certain graphics assets, which include, but are not limited to, patents, patent applications, trademarks, brand names and other graphics related assets. At the closing, NVIDIA US Investment Company paid $55 million in cash to 3dfx. Subject to the satisfaction of certain additional conditions, 3dfx may receive additional consideration from NVIDIA US Investment Company in the form of cash and/or shares of Common Stock of NVIDIA Corporation. As a result of today's closing, the patent infringement litigation between NVIDIA Corporation and 3dfx will be jointly dismissed with prejudice.

Still Need Bug Fixes From Windows NT SP 7?
Posted: 04/20/2001     Source: ActiveWin  Added by: Kim Heise

Since Microsoft will no longer be releasing Windows NT SP7 it may still be a smart idea to examine exactly what fixes were planned in the release. ActiveWin has posted a list of patches that were to be addressed in NT SP7.

I did find several worthwhile patches that addressed several annoying "unwanted features".

Do you still need some bug fixes from Windows NT Service Pack 7 which is now canceled? Your answer is here, luckily most of the bugs that were to be released with the Service Pack were already individually released. Check this almost complete list of over 150 NT bug fixes with the respective KB numbers. Just get the number of the bug fix you need, search the MS KB article database and see if your bug is available.

New Samba improves Windows mimicry.
Posted: 04/20/2001     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

We use Samba extensively at work to connect our Sun Solaris servers to our Windows NT desktops. This allows us to seamlessly share files between the two operating systems.

The new version of Samba allows connectivity for various UNIX operating systems to be more streamlined in connecting to Windows 2000.

Note: Samba works for Sun Solaris, Linux flavors and I believe FreeBSD - but don't quote me on FreeBSD.

Programmers have released a major update to Samba, software that lets Linux computers mimic Windows machines, encroaching further onto Microsoft's turf.

Samba lets a computer share files or manage print jobs like a Windows file server or print server. Like the Linux operating system on which it often runs, Samba is open-source software collaboratively developed by many people.

The new version 2.2 of Samba brings the software up to speed with Windows 2000 changes and adds several other improvements. Jeremy Allison, one of the lead Samba programmers, calls it a "major update" that will help Samba systems slip more smoothly into Microsoft networks.
 

NVIDIA GeForce3 review.
Posted: 04/20/2001     Source: Tom's Hardware  Added by: Kim Heise

There have been a whole slew of GeForce3 reviews floating about the internet but most of the reviews focus on computer gaming. Tom's Hardware reviews the GeForce3 from multiple perspectives and leads to a reasonable conclusion.

I still think the GeForce3 would be more suited for the gaming or graphics developer to prepare for the next generation 3D accelerator from NVIDIA which should be released less than six months from now. Developers can use the expensive GeForce3 to develop games and graphics packages for a fall/winter release schedule. By then the GeForce3 features on the next generation card will more commonly available and hopefully more affordable.

In the end the choice to buy or not to buy the GeForce3 may not be related to being practical but the want/need for the top of the line performance regardless of the cost.

I personally recommend GeForce3 to all the ones of you who are really able to appreciate the new effects that GeForce3 can provide. There is no point in buying GeForce3 just for its higher frame rate scores in today's games. The ones of you who don't want to spend 400 bucks on a graphics card have no reason to feel bad though. Your current 3D-card will most certainly be able to run the 3D-games of the next 6-12 months just fine, especially if it has a GeForce, GeForce2 or Radeon based architecture and thus T&L. Without T&L you might be able to play today's games, but I doubt that any of the new game engines is going to appreciate 3D-cards without T&L anymore. Keep that in mind if you are considering a Kyro2 card.

GeForce3 is anything but a must-buy, but the ones of you who can afford it won't be disappointed.

Samsung SM-308 DVD/CD-RW 8X4X32X8 Combo drive.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: GideonTech  Added by: Kim Heise

This makes plenty of sense since most users may have mini-tower or desktop cases with limited drive bays. Adding a couple of hard-drives and at least two CD-ROM drives quickly fills up available slots in the computer case. Also not to mention that your system does not need to allocate extra memory/CPU resources to poll an additional device.

For some of the people who have smaller computer cases with only a few drive expansion bays, space is very important.  So with that in mind, Samsung decided to kill two birds with one stone.  They have released their DVD and CD-RW Combo drive!  Rated at 8X4X32 for the CD-RW and 8X for the DVD, this IDE drive is fast and economical enough for the average user.

Analyst: Intel plans huge cuts in chip prices.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: Electic  Added by: Kim Heise

One doesn't need to be any sort of "tech analyst" to see that Intel will be trimming prices on the x86 CPU line. The market is no longer favoring Intel only. Especially the news that AMD is making rapid inroads into the PC market and Microsoft plans to support Firewire instead of Intel's USB 2.0 standard.

NEC Develops 61" XGA Plasma Monitor.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: Electic  Added by: Kim Heise

No mention of the cost on one of these monitors but you can be rest assured it will not be cheap.

NEC will unveil the results of a product development effort intended to deliver the industry's first 61`` XGA resolution plasma monitor at the National Association of Broadcaster's Show April 23-26, 2001 in Las Vegas. The prototype monitor, the PlasmaSync® 61MP1, incorporates NEC's industry-leading PDP panel technology in a product planned for mass production during summer 2001. The PlasmaSync 61MP1 is anticipated to be the first plasma monitor with a 60+'' screen size to be mass produced and delivered to the North American market in quantity.

NEC will utilize their state-of the-art PDP production facility in Kagoshima, Japan to manufacture the 61`` panel. The NEC facility currently contains panel fabrication lines capable of producing 61'' PDP glass, so no additional manufacturing infrastructure is required to place this panel into mass production. Additionally, key elements of the 61`` Wide XGA resolution panel -- such as 1365 x 768 driver circuitry -- are being adapted from NEC's current 50'' XGA PDP panel technology. This has resulted in shorter development lead times and will lead to efficiencies in mass production by using proven technology that is readily adaptable to the new glass size.

Windows XP won't support USB 2.0.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

I applaud Microsoft for this sound technical decision. Firewire ports are significantly faster than USB 2.0 and at least 40 times faster than the existing USB 1.1 standard found in most recent systems. The good news is that if you purchase a new system today that does not offer Firewire support directly you can for a relatively expensive cost of $50 purchase an add-on Firewire card.

With Firewire enabled video cameras and other devices you can expect a significant performance gain.

Microsoft will not support a budding peripheral-connection standard in its forthcoming Windows XP operating system, instead favoring a technology developed by Apple Computer.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker said it will not include support for USB 2.0, the latest iteration of the universal serial bus connection technology, in Windows XP, its next-generation operating system expected later this year. Microsoft will instead throw its support behind IEEE 1394, also known as FireWire, which was developed by Apple.

USB 2.0, which will succeed the current USB 1.1 standard, and FireWire are means of connecting PCs to peripherals, such as printers and digital camcorders, at high speed. USB 2.0 will deliver throughput of up to 480 megabits per second vs. FireWire's 400mbps or 12mbps for USB 1.1. That's up to 40 times faster than USB 1.1.

Ellison wants late-hours exemption for his Jet.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: Information Week  Added by: Kim Heise

Just a little humor news post for you today. Depending on your point of view this may not be very funny if you live close to the airport and would prefer not having Mr. Ellison's jet screaming over your roof tops at all hours of the night.

Larry Ellison's $40 million Gulfstream V has set down at San Jose International Airport after 11:30 p.m. a dozen times in the last two years. Trouble is, the airport bans overnight landings by jets of 75,000 pounds or more, to keep noise down.

So the Oracle chief is slated to take the airport to court this week, to argue that his jet is quieter than some lighter planes the airport lets land overnight.

But the airport isn't backing down. Says Jim Peterson, an airport honcho, "We stand by the curfew in balancing the quality of life in Silicon Valley."

New Intel i845 chipset & AMD TBird 1.4Ghz in May.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: XBIT Labs  Added by: Kim Heise

This year will simply not stand still in the PC tech sector. While the media hypes the slowdown in the economy the computer industry is booming more than ever.

AMD will be shipping the new 1.4Ghz Thunderbird CPU a little sooner than expected which is most undoubtedly driven by Intel's new 1.4Ghz P4 CPU. Expect to see some of the first batch of Intel chipset motherboards supporting Pentium 4 processors and standard 133mhz (yawn) SDRAM memory.

Infineon Fastest DDR For Graphics.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: VR-Zone  Added by: Kim Heise

The next batch of video cards that will be released using 300mhz or faster DDRAM memory will see some drastic performance gains. I wouldn't be surprised if you see main memory motherboard DDRAM ram support for the new 300mhz+ speeds.

Infineon Technologies today introduced a new 128-Mbit Double Data Rate (DDR) Synchronous Graphics RAM (SGRAM), for use in high-performance 3D graphics acceleration application. The new product enhances Infineon's family of graphics memory for the growing 3D accelerator market, and follows the pioneering 32-Mbit DDR SGRAM, which contributed to the image quality improvements in 3D graphics.

The 128Mbit SGRAM is organized 4Mx32, and hence is an ideal graphics memory for 32, 64, 128 and 256 bit bus applications. Featuring a JEDEC standard Ball-Grid-Array (BGA) package supporting clock frequencies up to 300MHz, this memory breaks bandwidth barriers imposed by TSOP and TQFP packaging. At this operating speed the new device is capable of handling data bandwidths up to 2.4 Gigabytes per second, which makes it the fastest DDR memory available today. Infineon is pioneering new features with this product, introducing a 1.8V matched impedance interface. Operating at 1.8V means significant power savings over a standard DDR interface which uses 2.5V -- this will be critical to reach the high performance levels required of 3D graphics cards and power reduction for Notebook PCs. Additionally the BGA package ball-out of 12x12 incorporates 16 thermal balls for cooling.

Infineon has already provided samples of the new SGRAM to key accounts, and is planning for general sample availability in the second quarter of 2001. The product range of the 4Mx32 DDR SGRAM will feature operating clock frequencies up to 300MHz. Volume production is scheduled to start later this year. Sample pricing will be $33 in quantities of 1000 pieces.

Intel’s CPU power dissipating as AMD rises.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: Digit Times  Added by: Kim Heise

Reminds me of the history lesson regarding ancient Rome. Historically speaking every empire regardless of the business will rise and fall. Even Microsoft will see the day when a company throws down the gauntlet and eventually takes the first place in the OS industry.

The year is only a quarter through but it’s already been tough for Intel. While the company is busily wrestling with AMD over speed and pricing, the market is raising questions about its profitability. On April 10, Dan Niles, an analyst at Lehman Brothers, lowered the company’s 2001 forecasts. On the other side, AMD is striding forward triumphantly and gaining ground in Taiwan’s all-important motherboard market.

As Intel has trimmed CPU prices to shore up its market share, profitability has been lost, despite improved production yields and the declining cost of the Pentium 4. The Pentium 4 may even be less profitable than the low-priced Pentium III. At the same time, the company is losing share in the distribution channel to AMD, whose processors are more attractively priced and offer higher performance specifications.

In the first quarter of 2001, the percentage of shipments from Taiwan’s Asustek Computer, Gigabyte Technology, Micro-Star International (MSI) and other first-tier motherboard companies using AMD solutions exceeded 30%. For distributor-focused second-tier motherboard makers, like Abit Computer and Shuttle, this figure topped 50%. Gigabyte estimated that AMD-based motherboards in March accounted for 40% of its clone shipments and 30% of its total shipments. According to Abit, 50% of its shipments are Socket A mainboards with AMD taking a 60% share of shipments to North America and some parts of Asia.

In the fourth quarter of last year, AMD’s Socket A and Socket 7 motherboards accounted for about 16% and 6% of Taiwan’s total shipments, respectively, according to Taiwan’s Market Intelligence Center (MIC). Totaling 22% in the fourth quarter, this figure had risen from the third quarter’s 18%.

Microsoft not to release Windows NT Service Pack 7.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: Active Win  Added by: Kim Heise

IT managers can breathe a sigh of relief as it appears Microsoft will no longer be releasing Windows NT service pack 7.0. This means no long hours upgrading all the machines in your group and then troubleshooting all the new "features" that wreak havoc on your IT department.

VIA 686B Southbridge+Live!+IDE work around posted.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: AnandTech  Added by: Kim Heise

For most users this news post will be useless, however if you own a VIA chipset motherboard using the 686B Southbridge chipset and use a Sound Blaster Live! card then you should pay attention.

VIA Hardware has what could be the answer to many VIA 686B / SB Live! owners' dreams. They have posted a fix for people have lockup issues when transferring large amounts of data over the IDE bus and problems with system lockups (a problem that both VIA and Creative have acknowledged):
Well, already we have a work-around for you guys.

This is truly a testament to the ingenuity of you, the readers, as this problem has been discovered and solved completely by VIA users at this point. VIA will supposedly have a BIOS patch later next week, but we are proud to bring you George's PCI latency patch now.

Keep in mind that it has only been tested on a limited number of configurations, but it should work under both NT/2K and 9X. Also, please treat it as BETA, and install at your own risk. Read the included readme for more information.

IBM prepares new Internet appliances chips.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: CNN Financial News  Added by: Kim Heise

My hype-meter is setting off another alarm. The term "Internet Appliance" is another coined phrase that could mean just about anything that connects to the internet. Any printer, PDA or even a network hub that is connected to the Internet is considered technically an "Internet Appliance".

I'm not knocking IBM's new chip but only making a point in general regarding much hyped terms.

IBM on Friday is introducing a new computer chip aimed at the burgeoning market for "information appliances," a term used to describe any device other than a PC that is capable of accessing the Internet.

The new chip, called the PowerPC IAP, represents Big Blue's first foray into the IA market, which is expected to blossom over the next several years. Technology research firm International Data Corp. recently forecast that shipments of consumer IAs will outnumber consumer PC shipments by 2002.

<SNIP>

The PowerPC IAP combines a microprocessor with a number of other computing features on a single piece of silicon, a so-called "system-on-a-chip." The company is aiming it at consumer electronics' manufacturers who want to add Internet capabilities to their products while minimizing the number of components in order to make them smaller, less costly and more power efficient.

The 100 Other Dumbest Moments in e-Business History.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: eCompany  Added by: Kim Heise

I can just see Homer Simpson shouting "DOH" 101 times while reviewing this list.

We've picked our top 101. But if you think we've missed a few, post your entries to our site. (For a version of this article with photos and illustrations, head to the newsstand now.)

Motorola announces 0.13-micron fabrication process.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: MacCentral  Added by: Kim Heise

The processors keep shrinking in size which means less heat created and lower power required to drive the new processors. That is why companies have been able to speed new processors so rapidly over the last several months.

Imagine attempting to clock a 0.25 micron CPU at 1Ghz. You would end up with a melted processor core that requires a mini power station as a power source.

Yesterday, Motorola announced its new HiPerMOS7 (Seventh Generation High Performance Metal Oxide Semiconductor -- called HiP7) manufacturing process that will allow future processors from Motorola, including the next PowerPCs, to run faster, use less power, generate less heat and be less expensive than ever before. This new fabrication process will be the first to use 0.13-micron lithography and SOI (Silicon on Insulator) technology along with copper interconnects.

Net access over power lines moves closer.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: EE Times  Added by: Kim Heise

If the technology of piping internet traffic via existing power lines would work and become cost competitive it may actually be very impressive. The problem with power lines is that there is plenty of background noise generated from trees to sudden voltage spikes in the line.

Moving network traffic at 1.5 MBits/sec is nothing to laugh at.

Two U.K. companies plan to kick-start the digital power-line communications market with low price points for disparate proprietary technologies. Startup nSine Ltd. has achieved first silicon on a two-piece chip solution that could deliver data at 1.5 Mbits/second over power lines for as little as $5 per node. Cyan Technology Ltd., for its part, is targeting control networks at 2.4 kbits/second and $3 per node.

<SNIP>

Davies acknowledged that "companies have tried to put high data rates down the mains." But he argued that while the approach "may work in the laboratory, in the noisy real world it doesn't."

Cyan has already partnered with Amino Communications Ltd. (Cambridge) to develop a device that combines Amino's interprocess communications standard, called IntAct, alongside Cyan's eCOG architecture. The partnership is expected to result in the Cyan chip's being used for embedded communications in a range of products that Amino is developing with customers. Those products are expected to enter the consumer market in the fourth quarter.

Apple makes OS X update official.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

It's easy to joke about Microsoft for releasing patches to fix issues that should have been addressed during development. Any company that is faced with intense pressure to release products on insane schedules is going to run into problems.

Apple users should note that the patch does not address the infernal CD-rewritable compatibility issue. Expect that patch "when it's done".

Apple Computer has issued an update to its Mac OS X operating system just three weeks after the software's debut.

The official release of the update, a collection of bug fixes and minor new features, arrives two weeks after a pirated version of the update appeared on the Web. The update follows the release of Apple's latest Mac operating system by about three weeks.

The update improves USB connectivity and stability of older software applications, and fixes minor glitches, Apple said. The update also puts Mac OS X through a "system optimism" procedure that can greatly improve performance, the company said.

The update, posted Friday, raises Mac OS X to version 10.0.1 and Build 4L13. People who downloaded the leaked update, or Build 4L5, must delete the file "10.0.1Update.pkg" from the Receipts folder found in Library before Mac OS X will download and apply the fix.

The update does not deliver CD-rewritable capability, something Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the company would provide by the end of April. In a controversial move, Apple shipped Mac OS X without support for CD-RW, DVD playback and DVD recording--all features touted in either current or past promotional campaigns.

Israeli mouse helps the blind "see".
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Here's another smart innovation to help those who are not as fortunate as we are to enjoy and learn from the web.

An Israeli high-tech company has created mouse that acts as the eyes of the blind and partially sighted by helping them view computer graphics through touch.

Manufacturers tout the Virtual Touch System, which lets the blind experience the delicate strokes of a Picasso sketch or the outline of countries on a map, as a "quantum leap" toward integration into the world of the sighted.

The product allows blind people to recognize shapes and pictures and to read text in normal letters or Braille by placing fingers on three pads that respond when a cursor on the computer screen touches a graphic or letter.
"The system is not only based on touch, but the user can listen to the representation with an audio device and see the image if they have sight. It's really the first multi-sensual device for the blind," company founder Roman Gouzman said.

Thirty-two pins on each pad move up in a black area, down in a white area, and somewhere in the middle for gray zones. The different heights enable the blind person to feel the curvature of lines and shading of computer graphics, or of Braille symbols or standard alphabet letters when reading text.

Red Hat Unveils Latest Linux Distribution.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: Internet News  Added by: Kim Heise

Just an FYI for users in the Linux camp wanting to update to kernel to 2.4.

Ericsson, Samsung Team For Bluetooth Devices.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: Internet News  Added by: Kim Heise

I suspect "Bluetooth" will end up being the wireless standard of the future. With all the support the protocol is garnering it is not too difficult to predict. Then again anything can change last minute in this industry.

Ericsson Technology Licensing AB, responsible within Ericsson for the development and licensing of the Bluetooth wireless technology, has signed a contract with Korea-based Samsung Electronics to incorporate Bluetooth technology into Samsung's semiconductor products and devices such as mobile phones and PDAs.

The joint licensing agreement is said to expand Ericsson's global position in the next-generation Bluetooth wireless market, and bring to the forefront Samsung's technical advantage in the manufacturing of core semiconductor components.

"Samsung is Ericsson's first Asian partner in its Bluetooth wireless technology business. And through extensive marketing efforts, the worldwide demand for Ericsson's expertise in the communications market is expected to grow," said Maria Khorsand, president of Ericsson Technology Licensing AB in Lund, Sweden.

Gric/Lucent Develop Secure Roaming VPN Technology.
Posted: 04/16/2001     Source: NewsBytes  Added by: Kim Heise

Currently wireless users are open to network eaves-dropping and hopefully encryption technologies will make it more secure. Companies who are offering wireless networks are betting that the short physical range of the protocol keeps it secure. I wouldn't bet on it.

<SNIP>