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Sun: No Solaris 9 for Intel chips.
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: ZDNET Added by: Kim Heise

This should be of no big surprise because it is not difficult to imagine that SUN made very little profit for the Solaris 8.x version for x86 platforms. The amount of money it takes to architect, develop, mass-produce and support any operating system must be astronomical.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out why Solaris 8.x was not popular amongst PC users because of the massive support for current Windows operating systems and you would have to admit SUN did a lousy job of promoting the alternative operating system.

How many PC users can you count on one hand that have actually heard of a x86 version of Solaris?

Sun Microsystems on Tuesday delayed plans to release an Intel-compatible version of its forthcoming Solaris 9 operating system, the latest slight in a long and often edgy relationship between the two companies.
Sun had originally planned to release two configurations of the latest version of its Unix operating system: one for its own UltraSparc chips and one for 32-bit Intel Xeon and Pentium chips. But, said Sun executives, because of economic cutbacks, the company will only release Solaris for UltraSparc processors when the new OS ships later this year.


"We retain the option to do (Solaris on Intel) in the future," said Graham Lovell, Sun's director of Solaris product marketing. "But given where we are with the economy, we'd rather focus on our bottom line and make sure we spend our money wisely. We'd rather defer Solaris on Intel to a later date."

IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky said Sun's plans make sense; the company makes the brunt of its profits from Solaris on UltraSparc.

"Solaris on Intel is relatively a small part of Sun's overall business," Kusnetzky said. "It won't have a major impact on Sun's client base. There's not an awful lot of them using Intel."

By delaying Solaris 9 for Intel, Kusnetzky said, Sun saves money on testing and production costs.

Sun's announcement is the latest move by the company to de-emphasize its support for Intel chips. Relations between Sun and Intel have been frosty since early 2000 when the two companies broke off an alliance geared at bringing Solaris to Intel's 64-bit Itanium processor. Ultimately, the alliance would have given Sun a secondary source for processors and Intel industrywide support for its chip.

Anthrax sweep spoils electronics goods.
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: The Register Added by: Kim Heise

I always wondered how electronics would fair under the intense radiation bombardment by the US Post Office to destroy Anthrax spores. It's not a tough call if you consider the value of a human life when compared to replaceable/repairable electronic components.

Whatever measure(s) should be taken to destroy the Anthrax score should be reasonable.

U.S. considers encoding data on driver's licenses.
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: USA Today Added by: Kim Heise

The concept of creating a nation wide identification system opens up a "whole can of worms". Privacy advocates are already up in arms regarding this issue which should be of no surprise.

What do you decide? More freedom means more freedom for terrorist or tighter restrictions for everybody including terrorists.

The argument posed by privacy advocates is that the nationwide ID will be used to track your habits. Currently every time you use your credit card you are being monitored for purchasing habits and nobody seems to overly care about that.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government is taking its first steps with the states to develop driver's licenses that can electronically store information — such as fingerprints — for the 184 million Americans who carry the cards.

Privacy experts fear the effort may lead to de facto national identification cards that would allow authorities to track citizens electronically, circumventing the intense debate over federal ID cards.

Supporters said it was predictable after Sept. 11, and after a briefly raucous debate over U.S. identity cards, that officials would turn to improving existing identification systems. With careful use, they say, these new licenses could alert authorities if a suspected terrorist attempted to board an airliner, withdraw cash or enter the country.

The Transportation Department, under instructions from Congress, is expected to develop rules for states to encode data onto driver's licenses to prevent criminals from using them as false identification. Under a new national standard, a license from California could be verified and recorded using equipment even in Texas or Florida.

In a report accompanying the funding legislation, Congress told the department it would "strongly encourage" officials there to develop guides quickly with the states for electronically storing information on licenses. "This could benefit the nation's efforts to improve security," lawmakers wrote, adding it could also cut down on financial fraud and underage drinking.

Transportation officials told the Associated Press this week the department's new security administration probably will take charge of the project, still in its early stages. Already, 37 states store information on licenses electronically — often using bar codes or a magnetic stripe — though none yet are known to include fingerprints or imprints of retinal- or facial-scans.

"What you're seeing here is sort of a hardening of the driver's license that could lead to development of a national ID system without creating a national ID card," said Marc Rotenberg, head of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center.

New external Creative Sound Blaster EXTIGY.
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: Creative Added by: Kim Heise

Creative Labs does it again with a new external sound card which may have limited demand/success because most new computers ship with at least "on board" sound support.

An Easy-to-Use External Audio Solution
Introducing Sound Blaster Extigy—the fully external Sound Blaster for your PC or notebook. Simply connect it to the outside of your PC or notebook and experience stunning digital audio fidelity with Sound Blaster Extigy’s 24bit/96kHz DACs at 100dB SNR clarity.

Quick Installation with USB
Skip the hassle of opening up your PC case. Sound Blaster Extigy easily plugs into any available USB port on your PC or notebook. Connect your speakers, load the Sound Blaster Extigy’s suite of software and elevate your music listening experience forever.

New NVIDIA nForce motherboard chipset.
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: Yahoo! Added by: Kim Heise

NVIDIA has announced a new chipset for computer motherboards that sports a very impressive array of features.

Expected release (I suspect) around 2nd quarter 2002.

CES, LAS VEGAS, Jan. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- NVIDIA® Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA - news) today introduced the nForce(TM) 415-D processor set, the latest addition to the Company's nForce Platform Processing product family. The nForce 415-D, the perfect complement to the new AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2000+ and other AMD processors, combines nForce's heralded Media and Communications Processor (MCP) with a new System Platform Processor (SPP) to deliver unparalleled memory, networking, audio, and PC performance. The nForce 415-D is also the performance vehicle for end-users who desire the highest system performance possible, along with the utmost in upgrade flexibility.

``With the introduction of the nForce 415-D and the new SPP platform processor, NVIDIA is now the only company to offer a broad product family in both core logic and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs),'' said Drew Henry, general manager of the Platform Processor Business at NVIDIA. ``The pairing of the nForce 415-D with NVIDIA's latest discrete GPUs, such as the GeForce3(TM) Ti 500, results in the fastest, most feature-rich, cost-effective PC platform available today.''

For unmatched system performance, the nForce SPP features TwinBank(TM), an optimized 128-bit memory controller architecture providing up to 4.2GB/sec. of system memory bandwidth; a dynamic adaptive speculative pre-processor (DASP(TM)) for boosting CPU performance; a single-step memory arbiter for the ultimate memory efficiency; and a 4X accelerated graphics port for external GPU expansion. The nForce MCP integrates an Audio Processing Unit (APU) with a Dolby® Digital 5.1 real-time encoder; StreamThru(TM), enhanced data streaming technology for superior broadband and networking performance; and the industry's most complete media and communications suite, including support for HomePNA 2.0, 10/100 Ethernet and USB. Both the nForce SPP and nForce MCP also feature AMD HyperTransport(TM) bus technology, delivering 800MB/sec. of data between the two platform processors.

MTV Announces Line of PCs.
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: Hardware Central Added by: Kim Heise

Anybody care to wager how long this "brain-wave" will last? On the other hand stranger ideas have flourished (The Chia pet springs to mind) and I will maybe one day retract my prediction.

Paperless sport tickets via wireless.
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: IDG Added by: Kim Heise

This concept is going to make the life of the average ticket scalper miserable.

Microsoft launches "Mira" and "Freestyle".
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: CNET Added by: Kim Heise

This week Microsoft has announced two new products code named "Mira" and "Freestyle". Don't expect these products available anytime soon but I home the "Mira" wireless flat panel display eventually makes it into the market for a reasonable price.

The New IMAC from Apple.
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: Apple Added by: Kim Heise

Apple has announced a new incarnation of the IMAC (as reported earlier). This time I've include an animated picture to show you how it functions.

New virus first to infect Macromedia Flash.
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: CNET Added by: Kim Heise

If you use your browser (which most users do) to view Shockwave animations you should be safe but there is a minor concern if you view Shockwave presentations via the stand-alone Shockwave player.

Antivirus companies warned PC users Tuesday that future Macromedia Flash movies could carry malicious viruses and worms.

The caution came after an unknown virus writer sent just such an infectious program to U.K. antivirus company Sophos. Dubbed SWF/LFM-926, the new program does little but infect Flash files on a PC when the movie is played.

"It's really a proof of concept, as opposed to something that you should lie awake at night worrying about," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for the Abingdon, England-based company. "But whenever a new vulnerability like this is found, other copycats tend to create more malicious variants."

The SWF/LFM-926 should mainly be a concern to Web site designers who use Flash animations to add pizzazz to their sites, Cluley said. Flash technology, created by digital media company Macromedia, is typically used on sites to add interactive user interfaces and multimedia presentations.

Macromedia went even further, calling the vulnerability through which the virus spread "not that serious."

"Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, people play Flash movies from the Web in their browser," said Pete Santangeli, vice president of engineering for Flash at the San Francisco company. "That's completely safe."

It's only when a Flash file or movie is played on a PC through a standalone player included with Macromedia's authoring tools for Web designers that this type of virus can actually infect a PC.

When the infected Flash movie is played, the virus displays the message "Loading.Flash.Movie..." and drops a 926-byte DOS file onto the PC. This file--named V.COM--is run by the virus and infects all other Flash files in the current directory. The SWF/LFM-926 virus' name is derived from the abbreviation for Shockwave Flash, as Macromedia Flash used to be known, the displayed message and the size of the file.

The virus will infect only Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems, but has not yet been seen circulating the Internet. Moreover, since the virus doesn't have a way to spread quickly, it's unlikely to infect a large number of PCs in its current form, said Craig Schmugar, virus research engineer for security-software maker Network Associates.
 

Transcend Speeds Up Desktop PCs with DDR333 DIMMs.
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: Anandtech Added by: Kim Heise

RAM speeds are lagging behind processors more than ever although RAM speeds have been slowly moving up. Imagine the bottle neck between a 1.8ghz processor and 333mhz memory? Not a pleasant thought....

Transcend has shipped speedier 333mhz DDRAM memory which should offer roughly a 10% performance gain over current 266mhz DDRAM- according to marketing.

Microsoft Launches Windows CE .NET.
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: Microsoft Added by: Kim Heise

Microsoft is doing a outstanding job of marketing .NET as a future platform for web based applications for both PC's (including servers) and portable devices.

Since we are on the topic of .NET my good friend Joe Mayo has just published his book on C# (pronounced c-sharp) programming, titled C# Unleashed that I would highly recommend. To find out more information about C# or to purchase the book check with Joe's web site called csharp-station.

LAS VEGAS -- Jan. 7, 2002 -- Today in his keynote address at the 2002 International CES in Las Vegas, Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corp., announced the launch of Microsoft® Windows® CE .NET, the robust, real-time embedded operating system for rapidly building the next generation of small-footprint smart devices such as handhelds, smart phones, set-top boxes, retail point-of-sale devices and displays. In addition, Microsoft announced new promotional pricing of $995 for the Windows CE .NET tools, as well as free availability of Evaluation and Emulation editions of the tools and platform, and source access to additional Windows CE .NET components. The company also detailed the new Windows CE .NET training curriculum. All of these will help bring developers up to speed quickly on the Windows CE .NET platform and tools, jump-starting their development process.

"Windows CE .NET lets developers build Microsoft .NET-enabled devices that deliver on our vision of making information available any time, any place and on any device," Gates said. "Windows CE .NET delivers the next-generation embedded platform, and the programs and services announced today will enable developers to bring smart Windows Powered devices to market even more quickly."

Intel Pentium 4 Northwood Review.
Posted: 01/09/2002  Source: VR-Zone Added by: Kim Heise

If you are curious to learn the inner workings of Intel's new Northwood CPU core then the VR-Zone has just the web page for you.

The 2 Tech Giants, Intel and AMD are in for a fight today again with the release of Intel Pentium 4 2.0AGhz and 2.2Ghz processor based on 0.13 micron Northwood core vs the AMD Athlon XP 2000+ running at 1.67Ghz. As we can see, the megahertz race between Intel and AMD is drawing further and further apart with Intel taking the lead with some half a Ghz ahead. Of course, this is just pure clock speed based performance with no architecture capabilities in play but no one can defy clock speed is a very important performance indicator just like the IPC (Instructions Per Clock).

It is not easy to attain the best of both worlds so Intel's strategy is to ramp up its Pentium 4 clock speed but suffer in IPC and make use of its architecture such as Instruction Trace Cache, Rapid Execution Engine and the SSE2 Instruction Engine to further improve the performance. However, for the whole of last year, Intel is still unable to unseat AMD Athlon processors with their Pentium 4s at least for the DIY market although things start brighten up towards second half last year when Intel start slashing prices of their Pentium 4 and availability of cheaper memory alternatives with SDRAM and DDR SDRAM to pair up with their Pentium 4.

Site News Update for January 2002.
Posted: 01/07/2002  Source: N/A Added by: Kim Heise

First post of the new year and Happy New Year to you!

News posts will begin to start slowly trickling in on Hitechbits and I appreciate your patience for almost no posts for December.

This is going to be an exciting year in the computer/internet business so stay tuned right here for the latest tech news.

AMD Confirms Problems with AMD-760MPX.
Posted: 01/07/2002  Source: X-Bit Labs Added by: Kim Heise

It pays to follow the rule of thumb for any new products: "Never buy the first generation or release". This particular motto appears to be very relevant for AMD's entry into the multiprocessor market. Read for yourself below.

Dolly the sheep has arthritis.
Posted: 01/07/2002  Source: New Scientist Added by: Kim Heise

This may be old news by now but something interesting regarding the cloned sheep that has been the center of a media frenzy.

Judge OKs FBI Keyboard Sniffing.
Posted: 01/07/2002  Source: Wired Central Added by: Kim Heise

Several humorous images pop to mind with secret agents running about "sniffing" suspect's keyboards...

On a serious note: There is no clear line that can be drawn on when it should be acceptable for federal agents to invade personal privacy. Having complete free reign to monitor any individual without reason should be tightly restricted but the monitoring of individuals who have shown ground cause should be allowed.

Personally I don't like the idea of any organization (government or private) snooping into my private business but when it revolves around national security and there is grounds for eaves dropping - then by all means.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department can legally use a controversial electronic surveillance technique in its prosecution of an alleged mobster.

In the first case of its kind, a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey has ruled that evidence surreptitiously gathered by the FBI about Nicodemo S. Scarfo's reputed loan shark operation can be presented in a trial later this year.

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Politan said last week that it was perfectly acceptable for FBI agents armed with a court order to sneak into Scarfo's office, plant a keystroke sniffer in his PC and monitor its output.

Scarfo had been using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption software to encode confidential business data -- and frustrate the government's attempts to monitor him.

Politan flatly rejected the defense argument that the FBI violated both wiretap law and the Fourth Amendment, saying that the FBI's black bag jobs "suffer from no constitutional infirmity."

"Each day, advanced computer technologies and the increased accessibility to the Internet means criminal behavior is becoming more sophisticated and complex.... As a result of this surge in so-called 'cyber crime,' law enforcement's ability to vigorously pursue such rogues cannot be hindered where all constitutional limitations are scrupulously observed," Politan said.

Scarfo's lawyer said he was "very disappointed" but he could see no way to appeal Politan's decision before the trial takes place. "If we should be convicted, it'll come up on appeal," said Norris Gelman, a Philadelphia attorney representing Scarfo.

Antivirus software vendors warn that a new worm is spreading slowly across the Internet that attempts to delete various security software packages. The Maldad.G worm, aka Zacker, infects systems running Microsoft Outlook by spreading itself to names listed in a user's address book and by looking for email addresses in Web pages cached on a user's system.

Zacker comes as a message that might have any of a variety of subjects and contains a lengthy body of text, as seen in Panda Software's report about the new worm. Zacker attempts to delete numerous security-related directories on a system, including those that belong to ZoneAlarm firewall, Antiviral Toolkit Pro, F-Protect, eSafe, PC-Cillin, Quick Heal, FindVirus, McAfee Antivirus, and Norton Antivirus. The worm also deletes several types of files on an affected system, including HTML; Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents; Microsoft Access databases; Zip files; JPG images; and MPEG audio and video. Affected file extensions include .htm, .pps, .php, .html, .com, .bat, .mdb, .xls, .doc, .lnk, .ppt, .jpg, .mpeg, .ini, .dat, .zip, and .txt.

Antivirus software vendors also warn of a new Trojan horse embedded in three popular peer-to-peer file-sharing packages, including KaZaA Media Desktop, Grokster 1.3.3, and Limeware 2.0.2. Users have reportedly downloaded tens of millions of copies of the affected software packages. The Trojan horse is a program called ClickTillUWin (aka Dlder), which sends a user browser type and IP address to a Web site each time someone uses any of the affected software packages. However, the Web site collecting the information is now offline.

New Linux Backdoor Virus Gains Smarts.
Posted: 01/07/2002  Source: Newsbytes Added by: Kim Heise

Linux users had better read up on this new security alert and take the necessary measures to close the potential leak.

A new and more dangerous version of a remote-control virus that targets computers running the Linux operating system may be in the wild, but security experts do not expect the malicious code to spread widely.
According to preliminary analyses, the virus appears to be a "smarter" variant of the Remote Shell Trojan (RST), discovered last September, that infects programs written for Linux, an alternative to Microsoft's Windows.

Managed security provider Qualys obtained a copy of one new variant last month from an "outside source," according to Gerhard Eschelbeck, vice president of engineering. Qualys will release a detailed advisory, along with detection and cleaning tools next week for the new virus, which it has labeled RST.b.

Like the initial RST, the new variant identified by Qualys is designed to infect binary files in the Linux Executable and Linking Format (ELF) and create a "back door" on an infected system that gives a remote attacker full control.

But Eschelbeck said RST.b is more dangerous than its predecessor because it contains a payload that turns the infected machine into a network "sniffer" that enables the virus to identify and use any open port for communication.

"The sniffer function allows the backdoor process to listen for any types of packets coming from any type of UDP port. This is an interesting but dangerous methodology we have not seen before," he said.

Qualys' findings differ somewhat from a separate analysis of a new RST variant identified last month by an independent security researcher who uses the nickname Lockdown.

According to Lockdown's analysis, the virus relies on the less common exterior gateway protocol (EGP) instead of the user datagram protocol (UDP). Lockdown said he discovered the virus on a "wargame box," a system used for hacking experiments.

Adobe will unveil new versions of its GoLive Web authoring and LiveMotion animation software during the Macworld Expo in San Francisco on Monday. The products are the company's largest assault yet against rivals Microsoft and Macromedia and Adobe's first volley into authoring content for wireless handhelds and handsets.

GoLive 6 comes just as momentum builds for creating Web content that can be viewed on cell phones from Nokia and other handset manufacturers. Adobe is positioning GoLive as the product of choice for Web designers looking to create dynamic Web pages viewed using both computers and much smaller devices.

Both Web products will be available for Windows 2000 and XP or Mac OS 9 and OS X 10.1. GoLive 6 and LiveMotion 2 will sell for $399 each or $449 as a bundle. Adobe is running a four-month $199 promotion on LiveMotion 2.

Californians have new ammunition in their fight against spam, thanks to a court decision this week that could make it easier to drop off from unwanted e-mail marketing lists.

A California appeals court Wednesday upheld the state's anti-spam law, ruling that it does not violate a clause of the U.S. Constitution.

California's law "does not discriminate against or directly regulate or control interstate commerce," the court wrote in its opinion. "Therefore, (the law) does not violate the commerce clause if it serves a legitimate local public interest and if the burden it imposes on interstate commerce is not excessive when viewed in light of its local benefits."

Congress has yet to pass federal legislation governing commercial e-mail, so consumers are forced to seek protection under state laws. Although this week's California court decision is a win for anti-spam advocates and consumers, it's not necessarily the last word on the legitimacy of state laws prohibiting unwanted commercial e-mail.

California's anti-spam law requires unsolicited messages to include a viable return address or a toll-free phone number that recipients can use to tell the sender to stop sending documents. The statute also requires unsolicited e-mail to include "ADV:," for advertisement, in the subject line of the message--or in cases where the advertisements relate to adult material, "ADV:ADLT." Violating the law is a misdemeanor.

Although such requirements are designed to help recipients keep unwanted e-mail from their in-boxes, state laws governing spam may cause complications for people doing business on the Internet. Owen Seitel, a partner at the law firm Idell Berman & Seitel, which is not involved in the case, said that as more states fight junk e-mail, Web-based businesses will have to comply with a "patchwork of laws and ordinances which are going to thwart the growth of the Internet."

For instance, Seitel said that if each state required different e-mail headers, senders would have to comply with 50 styles, making it "virtually impossible to do business."

Apple to Debut LCD iMac today.
Posted: 01/07/2002  Source: CNET Added by: Kim Heise

The news is spreading fast regarding Apple's new LCD iMac. Not sure if you have seen the pictures but the computer does look like a desk lamp and it appears as if it is going to topple over on the weight of the monitor.

With a computer footprint that small the upgradeability options are going to be very slim and costly which is not necessarily a bad selling point for a workstation if the price was competitive - which it is not.

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Pentium 4/2200 vs. Athlon XP 2000+
Posted: 01/07/2002  Source: Tom's Hardware Added by: Kim Heise

Here we go again - the battle of the CPU behemoths - but it is excellent for the consumer.

Intel has just released a new 2.2ghz Pentium 4 CPU which appears as rather un-interesting at first until you note the new 0.13 micron die size.

The 0.13 micron die size in the Pentium 4 offers less power consumption, less heat and more growth for increasing the clock speed.

However the benchmarks when pitted directly against the new Athlon XP 2000+ are less than impressive. Granted the P4 2.2 offers better performance but only slightly.

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Nvidia "GeForce4" To Be Announced Feb. 5
Posted: 01/07/2002  Source: Extremetech Added by: Kim Heise

The year 2002 in the video industry will be known as the year of the GeForce4. The rumor on the street is that the new speedy GeForce4 will be unveiled on February the 4th.

Anything you hear up that date is purely rumor and speculation - if the date is even correct.

Nvidia Corp. will announce its next-generation desktop graphics chip, which may be known as the GeForce4, in early February.
Officials at Nvidia, Santa Clara, Calif., told ExtremeTech Thursday that the graphics chip code-named "NV25" will be formally announced on Feb. 5, along with a desktop version of the NV17, a chip that was previously released as a mobile-only product.

Sources said the NV25 was originally scheduled to debut at the Consumer Electronics Show next week in Las Vegas, confirming a separate report by Taiwan wire Digitimes. The reasons for the rescheduling of the launch were not known.

The spokesman for the company declined to discuss the features of the new chip, or whether it would actually be called the GeForce4. However, observers said the chip will probably be branded as the next generation of the GeForce line, in part because the chip is being released a little less than a year after the GeForce3 was launched in late February 2001. Nvidia already released an incremental improvement to the GeForce3 and GeForce2 line in October, dubbed the Titanium series, which features faster core and memory clocks than the original versions.

Several reports on the capabilities of the NV25 have already been published, most believing the chip will feature six pixel processing pipelines versus the four used by the GeForce3. The reports also suggest that the NV25 will feature significantly higher clock rates, faster memory interfaces, and improved antialiasing capabilities. The Nvidia spokesman declined to comment on any of the features of the new chip.

Nvidia will also release a desktop version of the NV17-M, a hybrid GeForce2-GeForce3 graphics processor that was first introduced at the Fall Comdex show in November in Las Vegas, according to the spokesman. That chip, which featured a 250-MHz clock rate vs. the 143-MHz core clock rate of the earlier GeForce2Go, will be featured in desktop PCs as well. In November, Nvidia said that the NV-17M would appear in notebook PCs beginning in the first quarter of 2002.

The approximate pricing of NV25-based cards and additional features of the new chips will be announced at the launch on Feb. 5.
 

Intel ships 2.2ghz Pentium 4 processor.
Posted: 01/07/2002  Source: Intel Added by: Kim Heise

Today is the big day Intel releases the new Pentium4 2.2ghz processor. Nothing overly exiting about the clock speed but the reduced die size of 0.13 micron is huge news.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 7, 2002 - Intel Corporation today introduced its highest-performing Pentium® 4 processor ever, running at 2.2 gigahertz (GHz), or 2.2 billion cycles per second. Built using Intel's most advanced manufacturing technologies, the processor sets the stage for a new class of high-performance PCs that power increasingly popular digital music, photography and video uses, as well the latest applications being developed for the workplace.

Systems based on the Pentium 4 processor at 2.2 GHz are available immediately from leading computer makers worldwide.

Nokia Launches TDMA/GSM Phone Model.
Posted: 01/07/2002  Source: Yahoo DailyNews Added by: Kim Heise

With Nokia's new phone you can roam across any network including Europe and still receive service. This is exiting news for globe trotters and travelers alike.

In the future it is not too difficult to see the day when one phone service is available regardless of your location for a reasonable cost. I know current satellite phones offer that feature but it costs an arm and a leg.

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish telecom equipment maker Nokia (news - web sites) (NOK1V.HE) (NOKI.ST) on Monday unveiled a phone which would allow users to roam between different network standards in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

Nokia said the 6340 model would work on Global System for Mobile Telecommunication (GSM) networks, the most widely used global standard, as well as the Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) standard predominantly used in the United States.

The phone would, for instance, enable consumers to make and receive phone calls while in Europe -- where GSM is dominant -- or the United States.

It said the model was the first of its kind globally.

Nokia said the 6340 would also offer users limited Internet access through the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), and come with a ``wallet'' feature for electronic transactions.

Shipments of the phone in unspecified quantities were expected to start in the first half of this year, it said.

Nokia's phone launches are important because of its position as the world's largest handset maker, with a global market share of over 30 percent.

Intel vs. AMD: Celeron 1300 vs. Duron 1200.
Posted: 01/07/2002  Source: Tom's Hardware Added by: Kim Heise

Can someone explain to me why Intel releases a new processor with only a 100mhz Front-Side bus? I must be missing something....

Ah, it just dawned on me: Intel marketing division is concerned the new Celeron will confuse customers when compared to a Pentium 4. Not sure how that confusion can take place since most customers do not concern them selves with FSB speeds.

The launch of Intel's latest Celeron, which can now be had with a maximum clock speed of 1300 MHz, takes its battle with AMD to the next level. The Celeron 1300 is set to go head-to-head with the AMD Duron 1200, which is geared toward the same market segment. But the Celeron 1300, based on the Tualatin core, performs very sluggishly. The reason being that, with the front-side bus and memory clock limited to 100 MHz, it's hard to tweak the performance any more, no matter how high Intel may increase the clock speed. Or, to put it more bluntly, modern CPU meets obsolete platform. Plans to develop the latter further have long since been shelved by Intel.

The Intel Celeron 1300 is basically nothing more than a Pentium III with a 100 MHz ceiling imposed on its FSB clock speed. This measure was considered necessary by the chip monopoly's marketing gurus to ensure that there was enough distance between it and the Pentium 4.

<SNIP>

Even when its clock speed has been pumped up to 1300 MHz, the fastest Celeron can't hold a candle to AMD's Duron 1200. The main reason is that Intel limited the Celeron's FSB and memory clocks, which run at 100 MHz. The bottleneck caused by this low memory bandwidth really slows down this CPU. The 100 MHz specs were current in 1997, when the Intel Pentium II/350 was the first chip to work with a front-side bus of 100 MHz. Back then, PC100 memory modules were still hard to find - these days, such modules have become a rarity, with PC133 having almost totally replaced them. And with the way pricing mechanisms work, the PC100 now sells (to those who can still find it) at much higher prices than the PC133. But PC133 RAM can be used just as effectively with the Celeron.

Cisco unveils high speed internet access over existing wiring.
Posted: 01/07/2002  Source: Cisco Newsroom Added by: Kim Heise

This is very exciting news from Cisco. The company has developed a system for transmitting high speed data over just about any medium - including a barbed wire!

Thanks to a new innovation by Cisco Systems, things like high-speed Internet access, video streaming and IP Telephony are going places they previously couldn't. Hugh Barrass, Technical Leader, and his team of engineers at Cisco created the Cisco Long-Reach Ethernet (LRE) broadband networking solution—the industry's first end-to-end product line for delivering 5-15 Mbps performance over existing Category 1/2/3 wiring. With Ethernet-like performance that reaches up to 5,000 feet, LRE enables simultaneous voice, video and data applications without the need to rewire.

"If you consider the fact that most buildings are wired for voice not data, the market opportunity for LRE is quite vast" said Barrass. "By offering Ethernet-like speeds over regular phone wire, at reaches up to 5,000 feet, and co-existing with phone traffic, LRE brings rich, advanced services such as next generation video-on-demand to places it has not gone before."