Saturday, December 30, 2006

Intel: We will produce foreign documents in AMD antitrust case

by Nate Anderson

Intel: We will produce foreign documents in AMD antitrust caseThough not yet stretching to the epic lengths of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, the AMD v. Intel antitrust lawsuit has been going for well over a year and is still mired in arguments about what materials will be allowed in the discovery phase of the trial. One of those arguments has just been settled as Intel has bowed to the decision of the case's special master, Vince Poppiti, and agreed to release documents about its foreign business practices.

In a letter to Judge Joseph Farnan, Intel's law firm says that the company will not be filing any objections to the special master's report. "While Intel obviously had hoped for a different outcome regarding discovery, Intel of course will comply with the Special Master's decision and will respond to discovery as the Special Master directs," said the letter, though it also noted that Poppiti was not making any claims about the admissibility of any evidence uncovered during discovery.

AMD has accused Intel of violating antitrust law by giving out cash payments or using discriminatory pricing in order to keep AMD from making any gains in the CPU market. AMD filed its lawsuit last year in federal court, though it suffered a setback in early 2006 when the judge ruled that US courts have no jurisdiction over Intel's alleged anticompetitive actions outside the US.

Intel wanted the judge to rule that this meant AMD should only be restricted to US information during discovery. AMD argued that it should be allowed to look for evidence in any part of Intel's business so long as the alleged offenses took place in the US, and Poppiti agreed earlier this month.

(c) www.arstechnica.com

Apple takes $84 million charge, defends Jobs

by Graeme Wearden

Apple takes $84 million charge, defends JobsApple Computer released new information about its allocation of stock options on Friday, defending Chief Executive Steve Jobs following speculation that a key document had been forged.

In its delayed annual report, published early on Friday, Apple said it would restate its financial results for the last three years and also take a charge of $84 million.

Apple also said that while Jobs was "aware (of) or recommended the selection of some favorable grant dates, he did not receive or financially benefit from these grants or appreciate the accounting implications."

"The special committee, its independent counsel and forensic accountants have performed an exhaustive investigation of Apple's stock option-granting practices," former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, chair of the special committee, and Jerome York, chairman of Apple's Audit and Finance Committee, said in a joint statement. "The board of directors is confident that the company has corrected the problems that led to the restatement, and it has complete confidence in Steve Jobs and the senior management team."

Earlier this week, legal Web site Law.com claimed that federal prosecutors were looking closely at "apparently falsified" stock option documents. Other reports claimed that chief executive Steve Jobs had received a grant of 7.5 million share options in 2001 without the required approval from the full Apple board and that documents were subsequently drawn up to suggest that the board had approved them.

The allegations have sparked concern that Jobs could be forced to resign, robbing Apple of its visionary leader. Apple's stock price has dropped about 5 percent this week, but it rose by almost 3 percent following Friday's announcement.

Earlier this year, one of Apple's former chief financial officers quit the company's board of directors after the internal probe found evidence of some irregularities in stock option allocation.

Almost 200 technology companies have been caught up in the options scandal--including News.com publisher CNET Networks--and have been forced to investigate whether stock grants were backdated, a practice in which the grant date of an option is moved to coincide with a low point in the value of a company's shares.

Last week, Juniper Networks admitted that it would have to take a $900 million charge, while civil and criminal charges have been filed against several former executives of storage vendor Brocade Systems.

(c) www.zdnet.com

Newfangled DVD Copy Protection Apparently Cracked; Now The Real Fun Starts

Newfangled DVD Copy Protection Apparently Cracked; Now The Real Fun Starts

Next-gen DVD players are already something of a joke. Despite their ability to play HD content, industry infighting over two competing standards has stymied their introduction, and their high prices don't help, either. But HD isn't the only new feature these players enable -- they've got a fantastic new DRM scheme, called AACS, too. But, just like pretty much every other DRM scheme out there, rumors say it's already been cracked. It's inevitable, really, and illustrates just what an exercise in futility implementing DRM is: it certainly doesn't stop piracy, as the content available on file-sharing networks indicates, and it simply raises costs and prevents honest consumers from using content they've legitimately purchased in the ways which they'd like. In any case, if AACS really has been cracked, it will be interesting to see the industry response. AACS is supposed to be able to adapt and be changed as time goes on. For instance, keys on playback devices can apparently be revoked and updated in order to allow the DRM to be updated and keep pace with cracks and hacks. However, simply not updating a player may not shield a user from updated DRM, since the copy-protection on discs will change, too -- and if a player hasn't been updated, it won't play the new media. Surely the movie industry feels great about this, and thinks it's really got one over on crackers and pirates. Here's the thing, though: whatever changes they make, the DRM will just get cracked again. And changing around the DRM and requiring updates and breaking functionality isn't going to hurt those people -- it's just going to frustrate honest consumers who won't understand why their expensive DVD player won't play movies any more.

(c) www.techdirt.com

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Luxurious Leather Signature Suits for MacBooks

Luxurious Leather Signature Suits for MacBooks

Case-mate’s stylish Signature Suits are form fitting leather wraps for the Macbook and MacBook Pros. The casing of the Signature Suit is molded out of an impact resistant shell, it has a soft interior lining, an easy slide in/slide out design, and it has a cooling vent on the underside for airflow.

The suits are available in black with a white accent, black with a red accent, phantom black, white with black accent, white with a red accent, alpine white and sienna red. These stylish laptop suits retail for $149, which isn’t exactly cheap, but these suits will really make your laptop look and feel luxurious.

(c) www.iyiz.com

RIAA Sues AllofMP3.com for $1.65 Trillion

RIAA sued the Moscow based AllofMP3.com which sold DRM less MP3 for roughly $1.65 Trillion at the rate of $150,000 each for 11 million songs that were download from their website June to October. AllofMP3 was selling full albums for $3 without paying royalties to its original artist. Its illegal in other countries but in Russia its completely legal.

Earlier this week, Internet Service Provider, Perspektiv banned its users from accessing AllofMP3.com and to counter this move Piratebay decided to block Perspektiv users from access their site. Finally Perspektiv was forced to lift the ban (Piratebay turned off the ban too). Looks like they are playing it like an Eye for an Eye game.

I’m sure the entire lawsuit will be settled in court for something lower than $1.65 Trillion. Good news is that AllofMP3 is giving an special 20% discount till January 14th, 2007. Grab the deal before it goes offline.

(c) www.tech-buzz.net

2006: The Year in PCs and Chips

From Macs running Windows to Justice Department probes to quad-core processors: 2006 was a busy year.

Vendors in the PC and chip industries moved boldly in 2006, changing the marketplace map through mergers, recalls, layoffs, and lawsuits. Oh, and they launched some impressive new products too, keeping Moore's Law moving as they built smaller, faster chips and cooler, more efficient computers. Here, in chronological order, we share a sampling of the biggest events of the past 12 months.

Apple Releases Macs That Run on Intel Chips

In January Apple Computer sold its first Mac PCs that run on chips from Intel instead of on chips from IBM and Motorola, fulfilling a promise made in June 2005. Apple substitutes Intel's Core Duo chip for the PowerPC and G4 chips in its iMac and 15-inch MacBook Pro, soon followed by the Mac mini and 13-inch MacBook.

The move also let Apple expand from its own operating system. In April, Apple launches its Boot Camp software, enabling Intel-based Macs to run their choice of Apple's OS X or Microsoft's Windows XP.

AMD Announces ATI Acquisition

In July Advanced Micro Devices announces it would buy Canadian graphics chip vendor ATI Technologies for $5.4 billion. Integrating its processors with ATI's chip sets would allow AMD to sell platforms of integrated technologies, competitive with Intel bundles like Centrino, Viiv, and VPro, analysts say. Another effect of the merger is to leave Nvidia as the only independent graphics chip vendor in the market.

By November, Nvidia also says it will expand, paying $357 million to buy PortalPlayer, a maker of semiconductors for digital music players.

Battery Recall Begins

Dell recalls 4.1 million notebook batteries in August as a growing number of customers report they could short-circuit, causing some to overheat and catch fire. Within days, other vendors join the recall, leading to 8.1 million recalls of the lithium ion cells manufactured by Sony. Other PC vendors affected by the largest recall in consumer electronics history include Apple, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Lenovo, and Toshiba.

Intel Reorganizes, Lays Off Thousands

In September, Intel lays off 10,500 workers--about 10 percent of the workforce--as Chief Executive Paul Otellini enacts a promised reorganization that has already included the sale of its media and signaling business, the firing of 1000 executives, and the sale of its XScale smart phone chip division. Otellini blames slowing growth in the PC market when he predicts Intel's annual profits will reach only $9.3 billion for 2006, down from $12.1 billion in 2005. Analysts point out that Intel had also lost revenue by slashing prices on its chips in an effort to slow gains in market share by rival AMD.

Justice Department Investigates SRAM Market

The Department of Justice launches a probe in October of sales practices in the SRAM memory chip market, serving subpoenas to Cypress Semiconductor, Mitsubishi Electric, Samsung Electronics, Sony Electronics, and Toshiba. The investigation comes shortly after the Justice Department wins convictions and multimillion-dollar fines for price fixing in the closely related DRAM industry. By December, the Justice Department also turns its focus to graphics chips makers, demanding documents from AMD and Nvidia as part of an antitrust investigation.

Meanwhile, AMD continues another antitrust fight, continuing its long-running suit against Intel over accusations that the much larger chip-maker intimidated vendors from using AMD chips. That case is scheduled to come before a judge in April 2009.

HP Tops Dell as World's Largest PC Vendor

Hewlett-Packard overtakes Dell in October as the world's largest PC vendor, capping a year when Dell had reported a series of sagging profits and the start of an accounting investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. HP has its own problems, coping with a spying scandal on its board of directors that leads to criminal investigations and the resignation of chief executive Patricia Dunn. But Dell is unable to stop its loss of market share even when the company ends its longtime allegiance to Intel and begins selling PCs powered by chips from AMD as well. Dell Chief Executive Kevin Rollins says the company was also hurt by slashing prices in order to bolster market share, and pledges to spend $100 million to hire more sales and call-center workers.

Intel Launches Quad-Core Processors for PCs

Intel launches the first quad-core processors for mainstream desktops and servers, continuing its effort to rebound from a loss of sales to AMD. The new chips include the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 for gamers and Xeon 5300 for servers, coming just a few months after Intel launches a new family of dual-core chips including the "Conroe" Core 2 Duo for desktops and "Woodcrest" Xeon 5100 for servers.

Still, the arms race continues, as AMD emphasizes its advantage in power efficiency and pledges to launch its own quad-core processor by the second quarter of 2007, the "Barcelona" quad-core Opteron 8000 for servers.

(c) www.pcworld.com

Intel Pentium 4 Prescott costs just $70 Or grab a Prescott Celeron for $47

 by Fuad Abazovic

Intel LogoUS CPU prices today look realistic even compared to the mainland China consumer market.

The cheapest Core 2 Duo 6300 clocked at 1.86GHz LGA 775 Processor retail will cost only $183 retail. This boy can be heavily overclocked even with air cooling, some say to 2.6GHz or beyond.

But compared to other deals this is ultra expensive. You can get an Intel Celeron D 326 Prescott 2.53GHz LGA 775 for $47 only. This baby will be significantly slower but it is a quarter the price of a Core 2 Duo.

Intel's Pentium 4 511 2.8GHz LGA 775 RoHS version processor costs $70 retail. If you want a Pentium 4, a dual-core Intel Pentium D 805 Smithfield at 2.66GHz LGA 775 processor (Model HH80551PE0672MN OEM version) you will need to spend $89.

The Vista upgrade market can only be super-thrilled and happy as less than $100 bucks will get you a decent CPU.

All of these details are here so go and make your Yule. Newegg might even ship it to you before Yule Monday

(c) www.theinquirer.net

Vista security spec 'longest suicide note in history'

by Andrew ThomasVista security spec 'longest suicide note in history'

VISTA'S CONTENT PROTECTION specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history, claims a new and detailed report from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

"Peter Gutmann's report describes the pernicious DRM built into Vista and required by MS for approval of hardware and drivers," said INQ reader Brad Steffler, MD, who brought the report to our attention. "As a physician who uses PCs for image review before I perform surgery, this situation is intolerable. It is also intolerable for me as a medical school professor as I will have to switch to a MAC or a Linux PC. These draconian dicta just might kill the PC as we know it."

But this isn't just a typical anti-Microsoft rant. Gutmann's report runs to 6,000 words and contains hardly any FSF-style juvenile invective.

"Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called "premium content", typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost," says Gutmann on his homepage.

"These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it's not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server). This document analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry."

He also claims that Vista's content protection will 'have to violate the laws of physics if it is to work'.

I'm not going to comment on the details of the report and its implications but merely suggest that you read it for yourselves and come to your own conclusions. I'd also venture to suggest that Microsoft might want to comment on Gutmann's work.

(c) www.theinquirer.net

AMD lent $650 million for New York State fab

AMD logo

We wanted to know which is the best overclocking platform for Intel’s Core 2 Duo and some people who are really into it said we should maybe wait for the Nforce 680i motherboards.

They should be the fastest for both memory and CPU overclocking and the boards should emerge in the following days.

We know these will end up faster than both Intel’s high-end chipset 975X and the P965 although we know it will have a rough ride to beat RD600 from DAAMIT.

It supports three PCIe slots, two for graphic cards and one for physics, I guess they saw this one from ATI. We know that the memory can hit 1200MHz if not even higher. The boards based on it should be announced on the 8th, together with the new Geforce thingummy.

(c) www.theinquirer.net

Microsoft applies for "RSS patent"

Microsoft applies for RSS patent

by Jeremy Reimer

Late last week, right before the Christmas season began, Microsoft filed a patent related to using RSS services inside a web browser and throughout an operating system. The patent was filed with the United States Patent Office (USPTO) by Microsoft employee Amar S. Gandhi, with seven other names on the patent.

Is Microsoft trying to patent RSS technology as a whole or RSS readers in specific, as has been reported elsewhere? Not really. The patent itself makes no claims over the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) specification itself. Rather, the patent describes a way for an operating system to centrally manage RSS subscriptions via an API which can be used by other applications to access and/or modify the subscription data.

Microsoft applies for RSS patentThe patent itself describes the problem this is aimed at, in more detail: "Each RSS application will typically have its own list of subscriptions. When the list of subscriptions is small, it is fairly easy for a user to enter and manage those subscriptions across the different applications. As the list of subscriptions grows, however, management of the subscriptions in connection with each of these different RSS-enabled applications becomes very difficult. Thus, it is very easy for subscription lists to become unsynchronized."

In addition, the API can be used within applications to publish stories directly to a blog or other content-managed web site. In theory, this allows developers to quickly add RSS support to their own applications via the API.

The Microsoft RSS Team blog has new entries responding to concerns that the patent is too broad. "First these patents describe specific ways to improve the RSS end-user and developer experience (which we believe are valuable and innovative contributions)—they do not constitute a claim that Microsoft invented RSS." The blog goes on to mention that Microsoft has already released various Atom and RSS extensions under a Creative Commons license, and points out that both Google and Apple have applied for RSS-related patents in the past.

Still, because Microsoft is Microsoft, any move they make in the legal and patent sphere is bound to come under intense scrutiny. The company has a culture of applying for as many patents as possible (one program manager I talked to said his higher-ups were always suggesting he patent everything he could). Many of these are "defensive patents" designed to prevent Microsoft from being sued by other patent-holding companies. However, the issue of software patents in general is still a very contentious one, with some people believing that they should not exist at all.

(c) www.arstechnica.com

Board game tests PC graphics to limit

Unable to display Scrabble

Just how difficult can it be to write a version of the board game, Scrabble, that could be viewed on a regular, XP based PC? Too difficult for Ubisoft, it seems.

It seems fairly reasonable to assume that if you're a keen games player, you do a bit of research and get yourself a decent graphics card allied to a pretty reasonable display.

That surely applies to a contemporary shoot-em-up game but to Scrabble for Heaven's sake? All it needs to do is display a board and a few tiles (chips).

Yet this INQ hack wasted a couple of hours trying to get Ubisoft's Scrabble 2005 to work and to no avail.

The irony is that the game was bought purely because an ancient version – also by Ubisoft – refused to load under XP, having run happily under Windows 95 and 98.

Does everybody have to possess the graphics industry knowledge of a Fudo to get a PC game to work, the INQ wonders?

Another irony is that a close friend of the INQ, Dr Peter Turcan, made his name by creating a version of Scrabble that could run on a Sinclair ZX80!

Just for the record this is what the PC has: a SiS Mirage 3000+ display adaptor, married to a Video Seven (V7) L17GM LCD display.

The game requires DirectX – for which the drivers have very definitely been loaded.

At this rate, going back to playing the game with a physical board and tiles seems to be the most sensible option.

(c) www.theinquirer.net

Nvidia G80 Vista drivers in 2006 don't materialis

Nvidia G80 Vista drivers in 2006 don't materialis

DirectX 10 is 2007

WE KNEW that Nvidia and everyone else targeted DirectX10 for next year but we and dozens of G80 users are frustrated as we don’t even have buggy drivers for the new OS yet. We at least expected some beta in 2006 but this driver has been more than delayed.

Nvidia is playing stall until it's ready tactics but is getting a lot of criticis about it. People had time over the Yule break and all G80 owners can forget about Aero glass for Yule and New Year.

So what happens when you plug a G80 into a Vista system? You are forced to install standard VGA driver that will let you change the resolution to fit your native resolution of the screen and that’s it. Aero Glass won’t work and even rendering of 2D windows will be difficult.

Nvidia has really disappointed us with lack of Vista driver in 2006 but we hope that the full working version will be ready soon. Until then, ATI users can play all they want with Vista with the exception that a few things won’t work well, but every card is supported while Nvidia users can forget the super high end G80s for the time being.

I exepect that Nvidia plans to show G80 driver at CES as internally Nvidia has it for a while, but it doesn’t want to share it yet.

(c) www.theinquirer.net

Monday, December 25, 2006

Dell hints at "Black Ice" technology

Dell hints at

Dell today posted an update to its XPS 710 website referencing a technology only known as Black Ice. The company makes an allusion to a "cold front" but does not reveal more than a teaser image. Sources, however, suggest that Black Ice may be a phase change cooling system similar to that of asetek's Vapochill cases, which dramatically reduce the temperature of the system beyond even liquid cooling. The improvement would let Dell overclock even the hot-running Core 2 Extreme four-core processor without affecting other components. The system builder has not committed to an unveiling date but may reveal Black Ice in time for the CES expo in early January.

Earlier this year, Dell released a special edition XPS system known as the Renegade which featured an overclocked, factory-warrantied Pentium 4 as well as a then special quad-SLI video card offering.

(c) www.electronista.com

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Rumor: Mac Pro/Apple Supporting Blu-ray

Rumor: Mac Pro/Apple Supporting Blu-ray

Prediction of the day: Apple is going to announce Blu-ray support for a few of their machines come MacWorld. We have two bits of information we're basing this one on. One, the above image out of computershopper.com, which was sent to us by reader Sky. It's a scan that shows the feature comparison between Blu-ray and HD DVD. The interesting part is of the manufacturer support, which notes Apple among the companies to support Blu-ray. Typo? Early leak?

The second bit of evidence comes from an inside tip in one of Apple's departments. Apparently, Blu-ray people were there for an entire week holding talks on incorporating Blu-ray into Apple's products. Of course, the HD DVD camp could have also had a week there as well, but our tipster said he/she did not see them there personally.

Our prediction is that Apple's going to surprise-announce Blu-ray support come January, possibly in the Mac Pro and iMac lines. – Jason Chen

Thanks Sky!

Update: Oops, right, as the commenters pointed out, Apple's had "support" for the Blu-ray format since they joined up (thanks Neil). However the "manufacturer" support is something that seems new to us, as other commenters point out that there is no current hardware support. The fact that they're under the manufacturer's column now is why we're thinking they will include Blu-ray in their machines come January.

(c) www.gizmodo.com

New Core 2 Processors Around the Corner

Intel's roadmap adds more quad-core and value dual-core in the pipeline

It’s been a while since Intel last made notable updates to its desktop processor roadmap. Last month DailyTech revealed Intel is expected to launch a variety of new Core 2 Duo and Pentium E 2100 processors including refreshed Conroe based products next year. Intel’s latest desktop roadmap reveals more new processors and removes some previously reported models.

 New Core 2 Processors Around the Corner

Intel is expected to release its first mainstream quad-core Core 2 Quad Q6600 early next year. The processor is still on track for a Q1’2007 launch with an $851 per-unit in 1,000 unit quantities price tag. While this may seem a bit steep, Intel is expected to cut the price of the Core 2 Quad 6600 down to $530 per-unit in 1,000 unit quantities when Q2’2007 rolls around.

The Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 won’t be the only one in the Core 2 Quad family though. Somewhere between Q2’2007 to Q3’2007 Intel will add one more member to its Core 2 Quad family. This will arrive as the Core 2 Quad Q6400. The Core 2 Quad Q6400 will be clocked at 2.13 GHz and operate on a 1066 MHz front-side bus. It will have an 8MB L2 cache with support for Intel VT, Enhanced Intel Speedstep, Intel EM64T and NX bit technologies.

  New Core 2 Processors Around the Corner

Moving onto the dual-core product roadmap Intel has made a few changes to its latest roadmap. Gone from the latest roadmap is the Core 2 Duo E6390 which was essentially a Core 2 Duo E6400 with Intel VT and vPro extensions disabled. The previously reported Intel Core 2 Duo E6650 has been renamed in the latest roadmap. The latest roadmap has renamed the Core 2 Duo E6650 to Core 2 Duo E6550. Aside from the naming changes it remains a 1333 MHz front-side bus processor clocked at 2.33 GHz.

Previous roadmaps have indicated that 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo processors will be available next year as well. Currently, this remains unchanged.

New to this roadmap are new Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 and E6320 processors. These processors are clocked at 2.13 GHz and 1.86 GHz like the Core 2 Duo E6400 and E6300. However, the Core 2 Duo E6420 and E6320 will have 4MB of L2 cache instead of the 2MB found on the Core 2 Duo E6400 and E6300. The two processors are expected to launch in Q2’2007. Pricing for the Core 2 Duo E6420 and E6320 will be $183 and $163 in 1,000 unit quantities respectively.

  New Core 2 Processors Around the Corner

Since the Core 2 Duo E6420 and E6320 are endowed with 4MB of L2 cache this leaves room for the new Core 2 Duo E4x00 series processors. It was previously reported the Core 2 Duo E4x00 series was expected to have two models—the Core 2 Duo 4400 and 4200. However the roadmap has changed and the Core 2 Duo E4200 has been scrapped. Nevertheless in place of the Core 2 Duo E4200 is a new E4300. The Core 2 Duo E4300 is clocked at 1.8 GHz on an 800 MHz front-side bus. It’s expected to launch late January with pricing starting at $163 in 1,000 unit quantities. The Core 2 Duo E4300 is expected to have a one year life cycle with a product discontinuance notice expected in Q4’2007 and reach end-of-life in Q1’2008.

Joining the Core 2 Duo E4300 will be the Core 2 Duo E4400. The Core 2 Duo E4400 is expected to arrive in Q2’2007. It will be clocked at 2.0 GHz and priced at $133 in 1,000 unit quantities. With the launch of the Core 2 Duo E4300 in Q2’2007, Intel is expected to slash prices on the Core 2 Duo E4300 down to $113 in 1,000 unit quantities.

(c) www.dailytech.com

Dell to launch Blu-ray notebook pc 'XPS M1710' in Korea

Dell to launch Blu-ray notebook pc 'XPS M1710' in Korea

SEOUL, Korea (AVING) -- <Visual News> Dell International announced the launch of ' XPS M1710', its Blu-ray notebook pc in Korea market. It features Core 2 Duo processor T7600(2.33GHz/667MHz FSB/4MB L2 cache), 512MB dual channel 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory, 80GB(5400RPM SATA) HDD, and 9-cell batteries.

Suggesting price is 3,299,000(KRW-VAT not included) or 3,628,900(KRW-VAT included)

(c) www.aving.net

Friday, December 22, 2006

Dungeon & Fighter PC

Dungeon & Fighter PC

You might not have heard about Dungeon & Fighter, but it is a shoot 'em up from Korea that is wildly popular. Samsung has created a gaming rig that pays homage to that fast and furious shooter, but the model number could do with a rename. Known as the DM-Z60/Sport PC, it is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and comes with an entry-level SLI video card. The popularity of this game has even spilled over to Japanese shores and it is known as Arad Senki there. Those who love the game ought to start saving some money today in order to get a matching computer. Pricing details are unavailable though.

(c) www.ubergizmo.com

Thursday, December 21, 2006

What's next for AMD?

by Jon Stokes

What's next for AMD?In a series of announcements and conference calls, culminating in a recent analyst meeting, AMD has been slowly revealing pieces of the big picture regarding where they plan to take their platforms in the coming years. I've been following the coverage, and I've put together a synthesis of it below.

Fusion and Torrenza: die-level vs. board-level

AMD's long-term plan appears to go as follows. First, they'll push Torrenza as a platform for doing board-level integration with specialized coprocessors. This way, system builders will have the option of tailoring systems to particular workloads by changing the mix of processors that inhabit the coherent HyperTranspoort sockets on a motherboard.

So for instance, for a four-socket motherboard, one customer may want two stream processors and two multicore general-purpose processors (i.e., Opteron or Athlon), while another may want one Java + XML coprocessor and three multicore general-purpose processors. Thus, system builders can mix and match to get the best performance per watt per dollar for the type of workload that their customers typically run.

Fusion and die-level integration

AMD also plans to do the same type of mix-and-match strategy at the level of the processor die by offering an array of heterogeneous multicore parts that fit different workloads. A "quad-core" processor from AMD might have two general-purpose cores and two specialized processor cores (e.g., a stream processor and a Java + XML coprocessor), one general-purpose core and three specialized cores, and so on. AMD refers to these specialized computing cores as application processing units (APUs), and they plan to develop an array of such application-specific, modularly designed cores that can be dropped onto a die and fabbed with minimal cost.

In addition to modular processor cores that can be mixed and matched to suit different application types, AMD also plans to make other parts of the processor modular, as well. Specifically, the processor will host one or more HyperTransport modules and other I/O interfaces, a memory controller, different levels and amounts of cache, and so on.

All of this die-level mixing and matching goes by the name of Fusion, with the result that Fusion and Torrenza are essentially the same idea, but at the die level and board level respectively.

AMD would like to use the Fusion/Torrenza combo to escape an n-core race with Intel. When you consider the fact that Intel's approach to the nascent n-core race, in which the company starts out with package-level integration before moving to die-level integration, leaves them perpetually ahead of AMD in terms of cores-per-socket, it's easy to see why AMD doesn't want an n-core race to replace the MHz race.

So will AMD's flexible, mix-and-match, Fusion/Torrenza approach beat Intel's brute-force multicore approach over the medium term? It's really hard to say at this point, but the question is worth thinking about from a historical perspective.

Integration and reincarnation

To understand the ebb and flow of the modern (post-integrated circuit) history of computing, you need to know three fundamental rules that govern the evolution of computing systems:

  1. Moore's Law: die-level integration is cheaper than board-level integration, and it gets ever cheaper as transistors shrink.
  2. The abstraction vs. specialization tradeoff: modularity and abstraction can be cheaper (depending on the amount of overhead involved), but specialization is almost always faster.
  3. Sutherland's "wheel of reincarnation": generally speaking, it's cheaper to do things with a combination of software and general-purpose hardware than it is to do them with specialized hardware, but sometimes the market demands faster instead of cheaper (see Rule #2). So functionality will move from the processor die to a dedicated coprocessor for speed's sake, and then back on to the processor die when the coprocessor becomes bloated with features and too expensive.

Let me take these three rules one at a time, and discuss their implications for AMD's overall strategy.

Rule #1 above may not look like the traditional formulation of Moore's Law, but if you've read my article on Moore's Law then you know that the traditional formulation doesn't look much like what Moore actually said. In fact, I think that my formulation here actually captures Moore's larger point, which was a point about the economics of integration, than does the traditional "transistor densities double every 18 months" phrase.

At any rate, this rule is the number one factor working against AMD's QuadFX initiative, which is basically a pitch to sell board-level integration using coherent HyperTransport and PCIe. The overwhelming economic advantages of die-level integration will forever relegate platforms that rely on board-level integration to more specialized niches. These specialized niches are profitable, but the really huge money is in the mass market, and the mass market has an endless appetite for die-level integration.

So the result of rule #1 for AMD's grand strategy is that Torrenza is a niche server/workstation technology, while Fusion could be used in everything from the high end of the market all the way down to mobile devices. The economics of microprocessors dictate that this is and will always be the case.

Rule #2 may mean that Fusion-based parts are generally slower and cheaper than whatever kind of specialized hardware that Intel is producing at the moment. I say this, because Fusion's basic idea of a library of modular functional blocks that are mixed and matched for different implementations seems to imply the heavy use of automated layout tools, with less process- and clockspeed-friendly customization. So the question for Fusion is, how much performance- and profit-killing overhead is implied in the modular design, and is the tradeoff worth it in terms of cost?

My point here is that the main way that Fusion is interesting is as a way to do performance per dollar (and per watt), and not raw performance. Note that this characterization is as true for servers as it is for, say, mobile phones. Leaving coprocessors on the system board (i.e., Torrenza) will probably make for better raw performance in most cases.

The other, closely related issue with such modular designs (software or hardware) is that they're forward-looking, with the idea being that an up-front investment in modularity and flexiblity will pay off over a projected long term scenario in which flexibility is important. But what if flexibility turns out not to be very important? Specifically, what if there are really only two or three types of functionality that will ever be worth putting on a processor die?

Put differently, AMD has pitched this idea of an APU as a sort of placeholder, and invited all of us to imagine many different types of specialized coprocessors that people will want to put on the CPU die. To help jump-start our imaginations, they've offered up the GPU as an example of functionality that's headed for the processor die in the very near future. Then, they have a few more minor, "hey, someone might do this" examples, like Java + XML processors and physics processors. But what if it turns out to be the case that the GPU—or, rather, a generic stream processor—is really the only specialized kind of coprocessor that's worth putting on the CPU die for the forseeable future? What if it turns out that there's essentially no such thing as an "APU," because in the real world all "APUs" are just stream processors?

This last point brings me to rule #3, the wheel of reincarnation. Sutherland's original observation that functionality moves back and forth between the main microprocessor and specialized, off-die hardware was originally made with respect to graphics processing. And indeed, graphics processing is really the only domain I can think of where the observation has consistently held true. So it's not insane to think that GPU functionality is ultimately the only thing that will continue to make that transition.

But maybe I'm wrong, and there are other specialized coprocessors that could profitably make the jump onto the CPU die. (Notice the word "profitably," because I'm sure there are some that could do so unprofitably, where the market wouldn't reward the time spent developing and implementing it.) If you can think of some other examples, post them in the discussion thread.

(c) www.arstechnica.com

A peek at Intel's upcoming roadmap

by Jon Stokes

A peek at Intel's upcoming roadmap

Two new rumors offer a peek at what's in the cards for Intel in 2007 and 2008. First up is a rumor from HKPEC that fleshes out the picture of the bottom end of Intel's lineup that has been emerging over the past few months. Specifically, we can now add more details of single-core Merom-based parts to what we've already heard about the single-core Conroe-L.

Previously, news had leaked out about a Merom-based Celeron M 520, which is supposed to be launched in January. (The brains of the rumored MacBook Thin, perhaps?) The new rumor brings news of a Celeron M 523 (933MHz) that will come out later in the year. This part, like the other Merom-based single core parts, is a 65nm Socket M part with a TDP of 5W.

Also fitting those same socket and TDP specs are two other Merom-based parts that will go under the "Core 2 Solo" moniker. These will sport higher clockspeeds and be sold under the U2100 (1.2GHz) and U2200 (1.06GHz) names. The Core 2 Solo parts are also due out in Q3 of 2007.

The news that these parts will be branded as "Core 2 Solo" makes me wonder if there's any truth to previously reported rumors that the single-core Conroe-L will be sold under the venerable Pentium brand name. Why would Intel revive the Pentium brand for single-core Conroe, while shipping single-core Meroms under the Core 2 Solo and Celeron brands?

In other Intel rumor news, VR-zone claims to have seen a roadmap that puts Intel past the 4GHz barrier in 2008. The chip that will break the barrier is allegedly the quad-core Bloomfield processor. Bloomfield has long been rumored to be a 45nm design that will use Intel's long-delayed common systems interconnect (CSI)—an answer to coherent HyperTransport that will also host the Itanium product family. Bloomfield is also a true quad-core part, in that all four cores sit on the same die and share an L2 cache.

I don't think that the 4GHz rumor sounds particularly implausible, given current clockspeeds on the 65nm process. However, I do wonder about part of the rumor that says they'll do it in the 130W power envelope.

(c) www.arstechnica.com

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

LG to launch a new 'TVPC' supporting powerful PC performance

by Rose Kim

SEOUL, Korea (AVING) -- <Visual News> LG Electronics presented 'TVPC series' a sort of intelligence TV that embraces powerful PC inside while maintaining almost the same size of regular LCD TV.

LG to launch a new 'TVPC' supporting powerful PC performanceIt enables users to watch TV while they do various PC work like surfing the internet or editing documents. It can jump from TV-mode to PC-mode or vice versa easily with a touch of a button on remote control and provide instant access to web content related to the program that is currently on the screen, and allow users to move to the sites directly.

For PC-side, it features the same platform of LG's Xnote - intell celeronM 430 CPU, 160GB HDD, i945PM chipset, Intel GMA950 graphic chip, and 1GB DDR2 553 memory. WiFi access and wireless keyboard with mouse-function are provided as well.

Suggesting price is 1,850,000(KRW).

Meanwhile, LG anticipates rolling out another new 'TVPC' lineup that will support 'Time-machine' function and increased PC performance by the end of this month.

(C) www.aving.net

McAfee SiteAdvisor Plus Adds Support for Firefox and AOL

 

By Brian Prince

McAfee LogoMcAfee announced Dec. 19 that its McAfee SiteAdvisor Plus safety tool now supports Firefox, AOL Instant Messenger and AOL Mail.

SiteAdvisor Plus actively shields consumers' computers from dangerous Web sites encountered when browsing, searching, instant messaging or e-mailing, said officials at the Santa Clara, Calif., company. The new Protected Mode feature prevents consumers from browsing risky sites, while Link Checker analyzes links contained in e-mail and instant messages. SiteAdvisor Plus also supports advanced phishing site detection.

In addition to Firefox, AIM and AOL Mail, SiteAdvisor Plus supports a wide range of IM and e-mail platforms, including Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo Mail, Microsoft Live Mail and Gmail.

"McAfee SiteAdvisor gives online consumers more than 285 million individual site ratings every day," said Mark Maxwell, senior product manager at McAfee, in a statement. "Adding support for AIM, AOL Mail and Firefox to SiteAdvisor Plus extends the premium product's reach to users of these popular e-mail, instant messaging and browser applications."

SiteAdvisor's software adds red, yellow or green ratings to sites and search results based on proprietary tests of more than 95 percent of the trafficked Web, officials said. The software has already been downloaded more than 10 million times, they added.

(C) www.eweek.com

Saturday, December 16, 2006

First Overclocked GeForce 8800 Cards From XFX: X-Rated Speeds

First Overclocked GeForce 8800 Cards From XFX: X-Rated Speeds

As if Nvidia's GeForce 8800 cards weren't already fast enough, XFX is taking it upon themselves to be the first company to overclock them, sending them into hyperspeed territory. At the head of the pack is the 8800 GTX XXX Edition which is overclocked from 575MHz to 630MHz. Meanwhile the core clock on the 8800 GTS XXX Edition gets a kick up from 500 MHz to 550MHz. Pricing on the cards isn't out yet, but you can expect to pay a nice premium for them when they do come out. – Louis Ramirez

[original post: www.gizmodo.com]

IBM, Intel develop virtualization performance benchmark

by Patrick Thibodeau

It's been offered to SPEC, which is developing an industry standard

December 15, 2006 (Computerworld) -- There are already industry benchmarks for CPUs, mail servers and a wide range of other IT technologies -- and by this time next year, virtualization users may have an industry-sanctioned benchmark.

Last month, Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC) created a working group to begin development of a virtualization standard. And this week, IBM and Intel said they have offered a virtualization benchmark to the standards group for its consideration.

What IBM and Intel are offering is called vConsolidate, which measures processor and memory throughput efficiency on two or more servers.

Lorie Wigle, director of server technology marketing at Intel, said IT planning departments will be able to use the benchmark to simulate the workloads they are planning to consolidate and determine the best hardware platform for them. The joint Intel and IBM benchmark should be ready for users sometime in the first half of next year, she said.

Warrenton, Va.-based SPEC, a nonprofit company that has developed a wide range of IT benchmarks, set up a working group on virtualization that includes representation from the major vendors, including IBM, Intel, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Dell Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Virtualization software vendors are also expected to participate, and IT managers have been invited to contribute ideas to a standards process, according to SPEC.

A benchmark has to be consistent across all operating platforms and has to be "fair for everybody involved," according to SPEC spokesman Bob Cramblitt, who said parts of what the vendors contribute to the standards effort may be included in a final standard. "Nobody is going to let one vendor get away with something that might favor their particular configuration."

Jay Bretzmann, manager of System x product marketing at IBM, said the benchmark is now being used by other vendors. He said a tool for measuring performance across larger servers is needed because customers are putting tmore important and strategic workloads in virtualization environments.

[original post: www.computerworld.com]

MS' New MultiPoint Lets Many Mice Work on a PC

MS' New MultiPoint Lets Many Mice Work on a PC

Microsoft has plans to commercialize a technology originally developed for schools in India to allow multiple mice to work with one PC. Originally this technology was to help in schools with many more children than PCs. Using the software you can connect several mice to the USB port of one computer. The technology is called MultiPoint and while it uses mice now, MS is working on allowing multiple keyboards and other peripherals to be used on one system at once as well, hence the MultiPoint moniker rather than MultiMouse. With this technology each user sees the same thing on screen; they just have their own input device.

[original post: www.everythingusb.com]

Friday, December 15, 2006

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Beta Available for Download

Adobe's flagship product nears release

This week Adobe made the beta version of its next Photoshop installment, CS3, available for download. The one major caveat is that those who wish to try out the beta must already own a copy of Photoshop CS2, and a non academic version at that -- full retail only.

Photoshop CS3 has been long in the waiting for many graphics professionals and artists, particularly professional photographers. While Photoshop CS2 introduced integrated features such as RAW processing, CS3 is expected to take that even further, with more features as well as work with Adobe's upcoming Photoshop Lightroom.

The new CS3 beta is available for both Mac and Windows PCs. Mac users will find CS3 delivering a breath of needed fresh air, as for the past year Intel-Mac users have been running Photoshop under Rosetta. Adobe announced early on this year that it would not be updating CS2 to run natively on Intel-Macs, and instead putting its efforts into CS3. When Photoshop CS3 fully launches, it will be available in a universal binary format for Mac users.

[original post: http://dailytech.com]

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Apple Planning MVNO, Squashing Helio?

Apple

by Matt Hickey

So we know the iPhone is coming, we know it’s slim, we know that if we type the word “iPhone” again, our heads will explode, but what we don’t know is Apple’s plan for carriers. Kevin from Digg said he had knowledge that it would work on all networks. Of course, he also mucked up which technology Sprint uses, so we don’t count that as canon.

We mentioned briefly a couple months ago the idea that Apple might start up its own MVNO, like Helio or Virgin Mobile, to have more control over the total user experience than would be possible under an “unlocked” strategy.

TelecomsKorea agrees with us. In fact, it’s naming Helio as a possible casualty of such a plan, as Helio markets itself towards the same demographic as Apple: Young, hip, and with disposable income, people willing to pay for the lifestyle the brand affords.

While Helio isn’t exactly posting large numbers in the userbase column, we think it would definitely feel the pinch if Apple were to start up an iTunes-based or even .Mac-based network, as most of Helio’s features would be duplicated by Apple, and others (wireless iTunes, for example) would be introduced that couldn’t be easily matched.

At least Helio still has MySpace.

[original post: http://crunchgear.com]

Thursday, December 7, 2006

Nvidia unveils nForceR 680a SLI MCP

Nvidia introduced its new nForce 680a SLI media and communications processor (MCP), designed specifically for the new AMD Quad FX Platform with Dual Socket Direct Connect Architecture.

The nForce 680a SLI MCP provides processing capabilities on a massive scale, by allowing users to harness the power of up to four GPUs, eight displays, 12 SATA hard drives, and four gigabit Ethernet connections, all from a single consumer desktop PC, according to the company.

The nForce 680a SLI MCP is a motherboard core-logic solution providing a host of technologies, which include support for Nvidia SLI multi-GPU technology, with four PCI Express slots that can be used to drive up to eight independent, high-resolution displays for extended work spaces and advanced networking and storage capabilities, including support for up to four gigabit Ethernet connections and 12 SATA hard drives for a combined eight terabytes of media storage, according to Nvidia.

Additionally, the nForce 680a SLI MCP has been architected to take advantage of the power behind the AMD Athlon 64 FX-70 series processors, allowing users to also run multiple multi-threaded, CPU-intensive applications simultaneously without compromising performance, according to the company.

[original post: www.digitimes.com]

Half of North American Business PCs Aren't Ready for Vista

 

Vista's stiff hardware requirements leave many PCs in the dark

Even though windows vistaanalysts predict that over 90 million copies of Windows Vista will ship next year -- far greater than the 67 million mark reached by Windows XP at the one year mark -- it might be a bumpy upgrade path for many businesses. Vista pushes PC hardware further than any previous version of Windows. Many business PCs will get stepped over when it comes to upgrades as a result.

Softchoice Research has determined that roughly half of all business PCs in North America won't make the grade when it comes to baseline requirements for Windows Vista. Likewise, only 6% of business PCs meets the baseline requirements for a "Vista Premium" label. eWeek reports:

The inventory data used in the study represents a total of 112,113 desktops from 472 North American organizations in the financial, health care, technology, education and manufacturing sectors... Vista's minimum CPU requirements have increased 243 percent from those of Windows XP, which in turn had a much smaller increase of 75 percent from Windows 2000's CPU requirements.

Vista's stiff system requirements in relation to currently available hardware represent a significant jump over Windows XP and the hardware available when it launched in 2001. "At the time of release 71 percent of the PCs met the system requirements for Windows XP, whereas only 50 percent of the PCs included in this study meet the minimum requirements to run Windows Vista," said Dean Williams of Softchoice.

The poor state of readiness of today's business PCs can be attributed to companies adopting longer cycles between PCs upgrades. Some companies are waiting 5 years or more before significant upgrades or replacements are made to PC inventory. "Most organizations planning to deploy Vista within the next two years will have a PC life cycle that is affected by these factors, which, taken together, present a significant operational and financial stumbling block if not planned for well ahead of time," said Williams.

For those companies that have already planned ahead for a Vista rollout and have made the appropriate hardware upgrades there will still be software/driver compatibility issues to deal with. Companies that haven't taken the plunge to bring their PCs up to par still have plenty of time to work out the hardware/software/driver kinks before Vista gets its secondary boost with Service Pack 1. In fact, surveys show that 33% of businesses will wait six months to one year to adopt Vista, while 27% will wait one to two years (just in time for SP1).

[original post: www.dailytech.com]

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

La Feel Multimedia Mouse, a MX610 Clone?

La Feel Optical Mouse

It seems that integrating media controls in the keyboard is not enough anymore. Now we can get media controls on our mice as well thanks to the La Feel Optical Mouse. The La Feel is available in both blue and red colors and sports an 800 DPI sensor. The mouse also has a four-way scroll wheel, internet forward and back buttons and play/pause/volume keys as well as forward and backwards music track keys. I will say the mouse is rather ugly to me and the name is odd. If you want a proper mouse, get the Logitech MX610.

[source: www.everythingusb.com]

Will I ever have enough hard drive space?

I just ordered another 300GB hard drive for my Media Center PC the other day (hopefully it 300 Gb Hard Drivewill arrive in the next few days). That brings me up to 700GB of storage and I'm sure I will have that extra 300GB used up in not time.

I've already reluctantly deleted a lot of video which I will be keen to get back. If I could buy a 1TB hard drive for under $200 I would definitely have one and be filling it up fast and I know I'm not alone.

I don't even record or download video in HD quality, I don't know what I would do if I did given that HD content takes up almost 10 times more space. I'd be looking at needing 7TB of hard drive space on my PC instead.

Right now if I wanted to feel comfortable and could afford it I would like about 2TB of space with most of it housed on a network attached storage device (NAS), but five years from now I'll probably be sitting there with my 5TB of video storage wishing I could have 50TB.

I think my soon-to-be 700GB setup is above average but will be dwarfed by what some of you guys have out there. So if you have a beefy storage setup for your recorded videos let us know!

[source: www.pvrwire.com]

Monday, November 27, 2006

Birthday!

Today is "My PC Universe" birthday!  

Tag Cloud