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PC Upgrade.
Posted: 06/30/2001  Source: N/A  Added by: Kim Heise

Next month will be exiting since I will be finally upgrading my aged PC to a new AMD Thunderbird 1.33ghz machine and if time permits I will post an article on how to build just such a power system.

This will be my first AMD system - but I have build several for clients/friends/family so I feel very comfortable regarding the performance and stability.

The prices for the components are very affordable right now and I think now is a superb time to make a move.

If you have a moment, please drop me a vote on PCStats top 100 tech web sites. Your vote will be much appreciated. Click on the button below to vote.

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Court reverses Microsoft breakup order.
Posted: 06/28/2001  Source: TechWeb  Added by: Kim Heise

Hot of the press today as the federal court reversed the decision to allow a breakup of the software giant Microsoft. It's amazing how the ruling knocked the stock market through the roof.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said Thursday's federal court decision to overturn a breakup order against his company lifted clouds hanging over Redmond, Wash. CEO Steve Ballmer said the sun was breaking through.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sent the case back to a lower court to decide a new remedy for Microsoft's monopolistic practices. While the decision certainly brightens Microsoft's outlook, state attorneys general have vowed to press on with their case, taking aim at new products the company is developing.

The seven-judge panel, which last fall took over the antitrust case brought against Microsoft by the Department of Justice and 19 states, ruled unanimously that U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's June 2000 breakup order against Microsoft wasn't commensurate with the company's wrongdoing.

"This court has drastically altered the District Court's conclusions on liability," the judges wrote in a 125-page ruling. "Divestiture is a remedy that is imposed only with great caution." The appellate judges removed Jackson from the case, saying his remedy hearings were flawed procedurally. They also found that Jackson made "offensive" public comments about Microsoft to journalists, outside of the courtroom. (Jackson also Thursday removed himself from a separate, racial-discrimination case brought against Microsoft by former employees in January).

Transmeta unveils faster Crusoe chips.
Posted: 06/28/2001  Source: PCWorld  Added by: Kim Heise

Let us not forget Transmeta amongst all the AMD/Intel market wars. Transmeta has beefed up the internal clock speed of the new TM5800 processor to 800mhz. For a "startup" processor company their products are very impressive for the short amount of time on the market.

Overall the performance of a Transmeta CPU is behind Intel and AMD but the chip is more tailored for low power consumption devices such as laptops.

As a recommendation it could help the marketing of Transmeta CPU's to choose a name for the processor other than TM5800. For example the AMD "Thunderbird" or the Intel "Tualatin".

The TM5800 is available at clock speeds of 700 MHz, 733 MHz, 766 MHz, and 800 MHz, and will have 512KB of L2 cache memory. The 800-MHz model costs $198 in quantities of 1000 units, a standard measurement for chip pricing. The TM5500, with 256KB L2 cache, is available in speeds of 600 MHz, 667 MHz and 733 MHz, with a 1-GHz version expected to be available in the first half of next year. The 667-MHz version is available now, priced at $85, in 1000-unit quantities. The processors will also have on-chip single-data rate DRAM (dynamic RAM) and double-data rate DRAM.

Windows XP RC1 draws near.
Posted: 06/28/2001  Source: BetaNews  Added by: Kim Heise

Consider your next PC purchase carefully if you plan to make use of Microsoft's upcoming Windows XP. Early marketing talk from Microsoft states that a Pentium-II 350mhz with 128mb of RAM is sufficient to use Windows XP but actual beta testing of the OS reveals at least a Pentium III 700mhz with 256mb would be recommended.

Microsoft today released to testers the final interim build before Windows XP is deemed Release Candidate 1. Build 2502 marks the seventh interim release since Beta 2 debuted in March. The much anticipated first release candidate will signify feature complete code, with only bug fixes and fine-tuning made thereafter. RC1 is expected to arrive sometime next week, slightly delayed from the original June 20 schedule.

It was previously reported that last week's 2494 would be the last interim release before RC1, but Microsoft beta coordinators clarified in an e-mail today that, "This build is NOT RC1. We expect to post RC1 for download within a week. If you have a slow connection to the net, you may wish to wait for RC1."

Coinciding with the new build, Microsoft also announced plans to spend $1 billion to market the new operating system. "Never before have we seen such industry-wide support and such strong enthusiasm or investment in the launch of a Microsoft product," Microsoft President Rick Belluzzo said in today's press release. "With release candidate 1 of Windows XP coming in the next 10 days, we are working together with our top software, hardware, channel and retailing partners to communicate the amazing set of experiences delivered with Windows XP."

Panasonic Shipping DVD Burner.
Posted: 06/28/2001  Source: Electic Tech  Added by: Kim Heise

The price on DVD burners is bound to drop in price rapidly but I don't suspect anyone expected the price to drop to $600 and be available this soon.

Panasonic announced today that it has begun shipping to its OEM customers the industry's first combination DVD-RAM/R drive and will demonstrate the drive at the PC Expo DVD Pavilion (booth No. 3822). Called DVDBurner(TM), the drive is a major breakthrough in DVD storage flexibility and media interchangeability.

For retail customers, Panasonic will begin shipping its branded DVD-RAM/R drive in October. This branded drive will include DVD video recording/editing software, and be backed by a one-year Panasonic warranty providing a total solution. With retail pricing under $600 (for the ATAPI internal version), the drive delivers on Panasonic's commitment to provide customers a single, cost-effective solution for home video, personal computing, and business storage/archiving, as well as development and testing of master DVDs.

In addition to reading from and writing to both DVD-RAM (rewritable) and DVD-R (write-once) discs, the multifunction drive provides all of the functionality of the DVD Forum specifications for DVD-RAM and DVD-R General, including maximum compatibility with DVD video players, recorders and DVD-ROM drives. Panasonic's versatile new DVD-RAM/R drive leverages the company's 15 years of experience in high-density, phase-change-type recording/reading technology and builds on its nearly three-year track record of delivering highly reliable, rewritable DVD drives and media with hard disk-like random access.

Atari comes to cell phones.
Posted: 06/28/2001  Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Typically I prefer the government to stay out of our private lives but this time I fully support the ban of cell phone use in motor vehicles unless it is being used "hands-free".

Now can you imagine SUV owners playing classic Atari games while cruising at 60mph down the local freeway? Not a pleasant thought.

Mobile users could soon be playing classic arcade games such as Asteroids and Frogger on their phones by the start of next year.
UK developer iFone has signed an exclusive deal with Infogrames, which now owns Atari. Its programmers are now reproducing some of the very best video games of twenty years ago in formats that will run on Java and Epoc-enabled devices. The Manchester-based company is also working on mobile versions of modern games, such as Infogrames' Driver, and has also developed a football game for wireless handhelds.

IFone plans to release six Java-compatible games this September, with a further half dozen planned for December 2001. "These games will appeal to people in their twenties and thirties who played them the first time round, as well as today's kids," said Enda Carey, marketing manager at iFone.

Carey predicts that users will pay around 50p(US$0.70) to download a game, which they will then have to delete afterwards. "A phone running one of these games wouldn't have much room left to do much else, so you'd have to get rid of it after you have finished playing," he said.

Mobile phone users keen to experience childhood favorites like Pong and Centipede will have to invest in a phone that can run a form of Java called Java2 MicroEdition (J2ME). There are currently only around three million J2ME-enabled mobile devices in the world, but Finnish manufacturer Nokia recently announced ambitious plans to sell 100 million Java-enabled phones by the end of 2003.

New IBM monitor offers 9-million pixels.
Posted: 06/28/2001  Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Unless you don't mind spending $22,000 for a monitor then figure the monitor is more suited towards professional environments.

IBM plans to launch on Wednesday a monitor that can display images in far greater detail than current screens do.
The T220, which offers more than 9 million pixels on a 22.2-inch screen, will give people the ability to view large amounts of data in detail, according to IBM. In fact, the company said, the T220 displays 12 times more detail than current monitors.

Physicians, for instance, will be able to use the new monitor to view digitally photographed mammograms or other X-ray images in greater detail than is currently possible. And meteorologists will be able to view weather patterns on large satellite maps in extremely fine detail.

But such resolution doesn't come cheap. The monitor's price tag: $22,000.

Texas Instruments Inc. today announced it has begun sampling a complete chip set solution for 2.5-generation wireless handsets using the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Class 12 format. In addition to the three-chip set, TI said it will offer a full suite of software for GPRS units.

The Dallas company is hoping to jump-start new designs by offering "a complete wireless reference design that is ready to be put into final plastics and manufactured in less than six months of development time," said Jean-Luc Villevieille, manager of the company's wireless chip set solutions business unit.

The TCS2100 GPRS chip set includes TI's TBB2100 dual-core digital baseband IC, a highly integrated TWL3014 analog baseband device with complete power management functions, and a single-chip direct conversion radio-frequency transceiver, called the TRF6150. TI said the solution package will include wireless software, including a complete GPRS/GSM protocol stack, a broad library of multimedia applications, and the TI Wireless Software Foundation embedded platform and development tools.

The TBB2100 digital baseband is built upon a dual-core chip architecture, which includes TI's TMS320C54x digital signal processor (DSP) and a RISC processor licensed from ARM Ltd. The baseband IC supports Class 12 GPRS wireless communications, while supplying the processing headroom for value-add GPRS functions and applications, said TI.

Microsoft's XP: Hardware changes a turnoff.
Posted: 06/28/2001  Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

This is "fun" for users who frequently upgrade their computers by swapping out video cards, adding more memory or making other modifications to your PC.

Microsoft will not see me rushing to purchase Windows XP until this situation is addressed. The fact that the paying consumer has to pay because of software pirates is not acceptable.

The company's new product-activation technology, which locks Office XP or Windows XP to a particular PC hardware configuration, can deactivate unexpectedly, rendering the software useless until a code number is obtained from Microsoft. The feature could present the biggest headache to people that frequently upgrade or change components on their PCs.

Already, the activation technology, introduced to thwart piracy and promote software subscriptions, is controversial with some users of the new Office software package.
"I have been completely against Windows Product Activation from the second Microsoft announced they would implement it in Windows XP and Office XP," said Bryan Jagielski, an Office user and software engineer from Dallas. "Microsoft has every right to combat piracy, but they should do so without invading my privacy."

Microsoft introduced product-activation technology with an update to Office 2000 but made it standard fare with Office XP, released in late May. It will also be standard with Windows XP, the new version of the operating system set to launch Oct. 25.

In the case of Office XP, people can open the software programs 50 times before activating the product by phone or over the Internet. The process "locks" the software to the user's specific PC configuration.

In testing versions of Windows XP, the product must be activated within 14 days by using an included activation wizard to connect to Microsoft online, "locking" Windows XP to the existing hardware configuration.

PC Expo highlights from CNET central.
Posted: 06/28/2001  Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

In spite the current market slow down there are still a handful of exciting exhibits at this year's PC Expo. CNET has highlighted some of the more interesting new arrivals to PC Expo 2001.

PC Expo isn't expected to produce a lot of news about PCs, but makers of handheld computers, wireless equipment and other high-tech gadgets are busy at the trade show, part of the Technology Exchange Week New York event.

Here are some of the noteworthy product announcements to emerge from the show:

• Maxtor announced the Big Drive initiative to create hard drives capable of storing 100,000 times more data than current units. The effort is aimed at refining the existing ATA drive standard to boost drive capacity to 144 million gigabytes. The current ATA standard tops out at 137 gigabytes. Microsoft, Compaq Computer and other hardware and software partners are supporting "Big Drive."

• Sierra Wireless announced the Sierra Wireless AirPath 300 wireless modem for Handspring's Visor personal digital assistants (PDAs). The adapter plugs into the Visor's Springboard expansion slot for wireless access to corporate networks, the Internet and e-mail.

• TEAC announced new portable CD-rewritable drives. The units weigh 1.1 pounds, come with USB or PCMIA attachments for connecting to laptops and desktop PCs and sell for $329. The USB version writes data at 4x speed and reads at 6x; the PCMIA model writes at 4x and reads at 24x.

• OmniSky, which specializes in providing wireless data access for Palm- and Pocket PC-based handhelds, announced it is expanding its service to cell phones. The company demonstrated its service running on a Sanyo WAP cell phone and announced it has joined the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Forum trade group to help guide development of the standard.

• Intel announced the Wireless Gateway, a wireless networking base station for homes and small offices. The $299 unit combines an access point, router and firewall to allow PCs and handheld computers equipped with 802.11b wireless adapters to exchange data and share an Internet connection.

• Panasonic announced it has begun shipping to PC manufacuters a recordable DVD drive that supports DVD-RAM rewritable discs and DVD-R write-once discs. Besides being incorporated in new PCs, Panasonic will begin selling a retail version of the DVDBurner in October for around $600.

• Portable Innovation Technology announced the release of the MemPlug CompactFlash adaptor for the Handspring Visor. The storage device will plug into the Visor's Springboard expansion slot and install automatically. It provides 256MB of storage and costs about $50.

• Nexian introduced the HandyGPS ProTM, a Global Positioning System add-on for the Handspring Visor. It will feature Rand McNally StreetFinder Deluxe Travel Navigation software, enabling people to download maps, directions, points of interest and business services, as well as providing quick map searching.

DDR-II specification released.
Posted: 06/28/2001  Source: EDTN Network  Added by: Kim Heise

The main problem is not only faster memory to improve overall PC performance but manufactures need to develop processors and chipsets to take advantage of faster memory.

Currently DDRAM/RAMBUS use on motherboards shows very little performance gains because motherboard manufacturers simply "tweaked" the architecture to physically socket the new memory but have done little to optimize for the faster memory speeds.

JEDEC announced Monday that the industry standards body had approved the preliminary spec for the next generation DDR-II memory chip, which is expected to be in production in 2003.

A panel of 120 companies approved the spec at a recent meeting in Tokyo. JEDEC officials said initial samples of the DDR-II chip should be available in 2002, with production coming nine to 18 months later. DDR-II is expected to be lower voltage at 1.8V, with speeds up to 533MHz. The chip is also expected to be optimized as memory for both PC and handheld devices.

As part of the preliminary spec, JEDEC approved 400 and 533MHz DDR chips. Comparable DDR memory modules would carry the PC3200 nomenclature for a 3.2Gbyte/s bandwidth using the 400MHz chip, and PC4300, with a bandwidth of 4.3GBytes/s for the 533MHz chip.

JEDEC officials said the memory panel will now turn its attention to a DDR-III specification for a chip to follow in the 2004 to 2005 time period. Sources said DDR-III could be combined with the work of the Advanced DRAM Technology industry group, which includes Intel Corp. and a number of leading memory makers.

Western Digital ships 80G HD into 60G boxes.
Posted: 06/28/2001  Source: OC Workbench  Added by: Kim Heise

Drive down to your local computer store and pickup a 60GB WD drive and maybe you will find a 80GB drive in the box.

Does anyone else suspect this may be a marketing stunt by WD to sell drives? If you speculate for a moment that the company possibly packages a handful of 80GB drives in 60GB boxes and then "accidentally" releases the news that a "mistake" was made. Just something to think about....

Western Digital distributor screws up by packing 80GB HD into 60GB boxes. 500 to 600 such HD are now selling in Taiwan. According to sources, WD distributor will not recall the products. It is predicted that WD distributor will lose a few million Taiwanese dollars.

Microsoft drops Smart Tags from Windows XP.
Posted: 06/28/2001  Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

I fully applaud Microsoft's decision to drop the "dumb" smart tags in Windows XP. Smart tags redirect your search quires in IE 6.0 to a Microsoft sponsored web site. Not something that sits well with anybody who supports the right to freely choose and not be "funneled" in any direction.

Microsoft has decided to exclude Smart Tags--a technology that could alter the Web surfing habits of millions of consumers--from the version of Windows XP that will ship later this year.

As first reported by CNET News.com, the Redmond, Wash.-based company has included Smart Tags in the most recent test versions of Windows XP, an upgrade to the Windows operating system. But a company spokesman said Wednesday that the technology will not be included in the final version that will be released Oct. 25.

With Smart Tags, Microsoft can link any word on a Web page to another site chosen by the company. For example, if a person was reading a story about traveling, the word "airline" could include a link that would divert the reader to an airline or travel service chosen by Microsoft

Although the Smart Tags feature was included in Internet Explorer 6, the Web browser that is bundled with current beta versions Windows XP, it will be dropped from the final product.

"At this time we just don't believe it's going to be ready when (Windows XP) ships in October," Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said late Wednesday. "External feedback" was one of the factors that led the company to remove the feature, although he indicated it could be resurrected in later versions.

Cullinan also emphasized that Smart Tags remains a feature of Office XP, the upgrade to Microsoft's suite of applications that launched on May 31.

New Napster allows just 1.5 shared songs per user.
Posted: 06/28/2001  Source: NewsBytes  Added by: Kim Heise

The bottom line here is that the Napster revolution is over and users are leaving in droves to more open file sharing systems such as GNUtella.

The latest version of the Napster client, released Friday, is permitting almost no MP3 files to be shared between users, research released today indicates. But continuing to use older versions of Napster's software will be a short-term fix: they're all about to be disabled.
A report today by the Webnoize digital entertainment intelligence firm says that the latest version of Napster's file-sharing browser, version 2.0 beta 10.3, comes with music-fingerprinting technology installed. A survey today of files available to users of the new client showed users were able to share on average only 1.5 songs each.

That is down from the more the 220 songs that the average Napster fan had available for sharing in February, Webnoize said.

On its Web site, Napster states that the new application "incorporates new file identification technology," and that "this new version of the application will allow Napster to continue complying with the court's injunction while also improving the Napster experience." Napster has been under court order since March to block swaps of copyrighted files on its network.

Napster's site also encourages users to download the new beta version soon. "In order to comply with the court order, we'll soon be disabling previous versions of the Napster application," the site says. It gives no date for blacking access to older versions.

In exchange for cutting off what previously was unfettered access to almost any recorded music in existence, the new client promises some tweaks. It has improved file transfers with fewer errors and timeouts, according to the site, and can exclude selected terms from search results using the minus-sign key. Unidentified "minor bugs" in the system have also been fixed, the site said.

Despite offering an "improved experience," it is apparent that Napster's fans are losing interest. Matt Bailey, a Webnoize analyst, said this afternoon that at 10 a.m. EDT today, Napster had some 320,000 users logged on to its servers. That compares to February's peak Napster usage, when 1.57 million users were logged on simultaneously. Even as recently as May, Bailey said, there were 840,000 users logged on at once.

The Cappuccino PC.
Posted: 06/25/2001     Source: Ars Technica  Added by: Kim Heise

Take a look at this tiny PC which sports a 800mhz Pentium III processor. Ars-Technica takes a closer look at the Cappuccino PC that is more tailored for a personal workstation rather than a high performance gaming box.

The article is guaranteed to leave you in awe on how these companies can possibly fit all those components in this small box. If you note the picture below when compared to a pencil.

Even though the Cappuccino is a tad larger than the Espresso, it still packs quite a bit of hardware in a very small package. The Cappuccino that iBuyPower sent me had as much beef as a full-on desktop system. It wasn't missing a single port, plug, or capability that you'd find on a solid, mid-range PC. Here are the some of the specs, right from Saintsong's site.

Matrox G550 Preview.
Posted: 06/25/2001     Source: System Logic  Added by: Kim Heise

Instead of going head-to-head with NVIDIA in terms of performance, Matrox has decided to move into the business sector in video card features and performance. System Logic has posted a preview on Matrox's new G550 video card that sports dual monitor support.

Not a bad deal at all for $125.00

The current estimated price of the card is slated to be $125, so it becomes an even more attractive part for business-class PC, as well as a part for a home-office PC or a front-room entertainment server. The chip is also pin-compatible with Matrox's G400 and G450 processors, meaning that they can re-use a lot of their old equipment and facilities to save costs, and save headaches on the part of current integration customers. This may also attract them some new business from newer customers that have long favored ATI's chipset, such as Dell and Gateway. Matrox will have to continue to innovate to compete with the integrated-chipset market, however, with Intel and S3/VIA making inroads in the motherboard market with their integrated graphics subsystems.

Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack 1 (SP1) includes a number of feature enhancements and utility updates, as well as fixes to server issues, some of which were previously available as Microsoft Quick Fix Engineering (QFE) patches. Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server SP1 introduces new features and improvements in a separate service pack.

We recommend installing SP1 on all servers running Exchange 2000. Exchange 2000 SP1 does not require an update to the Microsoft Active Directory™ schema, except for Lotus Notes and GroupWise calendar connectors, which are installed by means of a separate installation program.

Toshiba Introduces 5GB PC Card Hard Disk Drive.
Posted: 06/25/2001     Source: Electic Tech  Added by: Kim Heise

Now all we need is to add to this new 5GB PC card hard drive is an adaptor to connect your PDA for more storage options. The only concern would be the increased power consumption.

Internet Explorer 6 Public Preview - Refresh.
Posted: 06/25/2001     Source: Microsoft  Added by: Kim Heise

Microsoft has posted an updated release of IE 6.0 if you have installed the previous builds and wish to patch up some of the major bugs on your system. If you have not installed the IE6 beta version yet - then you may wish to wait for the final version which should be available shortly.

This is the latest release of the Internet Explorer 6 public beta. Internet Explorer 6 is a set of core technologies in Windows® XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional. Internet Explorer 6 public beta combines a private, reliable, and flexible browsing experience with the freedom to experience the best of the Internet for users of Windows 98 & Windows 98 SE, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows NT® Workstation 4.0, and Windows 2000 Professional.

Microsoft: We Use FreeBSD.
Posted: 06/25/2001     Source: BetaNews  Added by: Kim Heise

Here's something to wonder about. If Windows NT/2000 is so reliable then why use FreeBSD? Microsoft's marketing division will most likely state that the work required to convert to Windows NT/2000 may be unfeasible at this time.

Despite the company's bitter campaign against open source software, Microsoft continues to use FreeBSD to power important functions of its Hotmail free e-mail service. Much to the chagrin of the folks at Redmond, FreeBSD and Apache continued to run Hotmail for several years after it was purchased in 1997. Microsoft publicly claimed to have removed all traces of FreeBSD last summer, and even published a case study documenting its experiences. Microsoft told BetaNews that solutions such as FreeBSD are in use throughout its IT infrastructure. A spokesperson also clarified the the software giant's position on OSS technologies, and views on GPL licensing.

Microsoft maintains however, that it is migrating to its own proprietary software and any delays are meant to ensure a positive experience for its customers.

Contrary to recent claims, the popular Hotmail service does not run entirely on the Windows 2000 platform. First reported by the Wall Street Journal, FreeBSD developer Trevor Johnson determined that Microsoft was still using the open source operating system for DNS hosting and also for tracking advertisements. It has also been reported that FreeBSD software components are utilized in Microsoft products, such as Windows 2000. BSD's TCP/IP stack, a vital communication protocol, is rumored to have been used in several Windows operating systems, enabling users to connect to the Internet.

Napster lifts some song-swapping limits.
Posted: 06/25/2001     Source: CNET  Added by: Kim Heise

Napster has been loosing plenty of users due to the new song filtering system. In an attempt to boost subscribers to prepare for the pay subscription service the company has decided to "tweak" some of the filters to allow easier access to music.

I still have a bad feeling about trying to charge for Napster. I suspect users are going to jump ship over to other file sharing services such as GNUtella.

Napster has released a new version of its software that allows customers to find many songs that recently disappeared from its file-swapping service.

Late Friday, the company posted software that can more accurately determine which songs it is supposed to be blocking. That will once again allow people to trade a huge number of songs by independent or other artists that were inadvertently blocked by the filtering system during the past few weeks.

"Help has arrived," the company wrote in a message on its site late Friday. The new technology "allows Napster to continue complying with the court's injunction, while blocking only the files we've been told to remove."
Napster's song-swapping filters, installed at the insistence of the courts and the record industry after several court battles, had dramatically reduced the number of songs available. As a result, many Napster users have switched to other file-swapping services.

According to industry consulting firm Webnoize, the average number of files shared by a person on the Napster network fell from 220 in February to just 21 by the end of May. The company also estimated that just 360 million files were traded through the service in May, compared with 2.79 billion in February.

Ricoh and Pretec Team Up to Show 640MB CompactFlash Card.
Posted: 06/25/2001     Source: Electic Tech  Added by: Kim Heise

A 640MB compact flash card for digital cameras is fantastic news! Now imagine how much it would make your MP3 player more practical. For 640MB of MP3 audio clips you would be able to store at least one hundred songs or more.

Maybe it is time to consider a portable MP3 player. I decided that unless I could store at least one full audio CD (74 minutes) on a portable MP3 player and pay under $300 I would not purchase one.

TDK Introduces 24/10/40 CD Burner.
Posted: 06/25/2001     Source: Electic Tech  Added by: Kim Heise

I would be surprised (but not impossible) if we exceed the 24x speed for recordable CD's. At some point we are going to strain the physical limitations on how fast we can rotate the disc and transfer data at the same time.

Rip, Rock, and Roll performance helped propel the TDK veloCD line of CD burners to the forefront of the high-performance PC peripherals market. And now TDK has raised the bar again with the release of the veloCD 24/10/40 CD ReWritable Drive and Certified Plus CD-R discs specially designed for recording at 24x speed.

The 24X veloCD burner is an internal ATAPI/E-IDE drive offering the ultimate in recording, rewriting, and rip speed performance. With 24x write, 10X rewrite and 40X data read speeds, the new veloCD is the fastest drive available. Equally important for today's music-passionate computer user, the new veloCD is capable of ripping CD audio tracks at 40X, with bit-perfect musical accuracy. With the inclusion of BURN-Proof(TM) write assurance technology, the new veloCD eliminates buffer underrun errors for perfect recordings every time--even during multitasking operations.

In conjunction with the new high-speed veloCD, TDK is offering Certified Plus 24x CD-R discs that incorporate the latest recording dye technology for ultra-reliable high-speed burns. TDK also offers High Speed CD-RW discs specially engineered for 10x rewriting.

Ericsson conducts Bluetooth trials in Japan.
Posted: 06/25/2001     Source: TechWeb  Added by: Kim Heise

I'm not sure about you but I am eagerly anticipating removing all the cables under my desk when wireless services will be more available for all components.

IBM develops fastest silicon transistor.
Posted: 06/25/2001     Source: ZDNET  Added by: Kim Heise

More news hype from the IBM front. All too often the consumer never sees the light of these products or these new advances simply becoming staging blocks for other products.

Nevertheless it is interesting news.

In a move that could pave the way for faster and less power-hungry networking chips, IBM announced Monday that it has developed the world's fastest silicon transistor.
IBM has refined its silicon-germanium chip-manufacturing technology to produce transistors that are far thinner than others. As a result, information can travel faster or at the same speed using far less power.

The new transistor is capable of operating at 210GHz using just 1 milliamp of electrical current, or about 80 percent faster than current technology while using half as much power.

IBM said the technique should pave the way for networking chips that can run at 80GHz, or twice as fast as today's fastest silicon-based chips. If successful, IBM could help chip designers avoid having to move more of their processors to more exotic materials such as gallium arsenide or indium phosphide.

"Silicon just wasn't going to go to these speeds," said IBM Fellow Bernard Meyerson, who is also vice president of the company's communications research and development center in East Fishkill, N.Y. "In a nutshell, we've raised the bar dramatically."