Slashdot Mirror

Methinks they wrote this a long time ago and were just saving it for the right time...

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The good: Small, 1.3MB download; offers lots of speed and convenience configuration options; filters out ads.

The bad: Makes plug-in and JavaScript installation difficult; somewhat slow; runs only on a Mac.

WTF? It offers lots of speed while being somewhat slow? Is there some kind of new slang going on here?


If you're not wasted, the day is.

The good: Small, 1.3MB download; offers lots of speed and convenience configuration options; filters out ads.

The bad: Makes plug-in and JavaScript installation difficult; somewhat slow; runs only on a Mac.

WTF? It offers lots of speed while being somewhat slow? Is there some kind of new slang going on here?


If you're not wasted, the day is.

The good: Small, 1.3MB download; offers lots of speed and convenience configuration options; filters out ads.

The bad: Makes plug-in and JavaScript installation difficult; somewhat slow; runs only on a Mac.

WTF? It offers lots of speed while being somewhat slow? Is there some kind of new slang going on here?


If you're not wasted, the day is.

But how could you ever think up anti-patents to some of the ridiculous patents being applied for, such as this one by HP - applying for a patent for packing a computer in a box ? Apparently using one big box isn't obvious (not to HP, anyway).

CNET has more on this story at here

MP3 player (with remote control), radio and TV, videoconferencing, multiplayer games, and emergency beacons.

MP3 player (with remote control), radio and TV, videoconferencing, multiplayer games, and emergency beacons.

Palm/Pocket PC - Capabilities & Reality. Rebuttal from a CasioE100 Owner:

a) Don't compare processors... the Palm does everything quickly and efficiently with 16mhz. The Pocket PCs are 133mhz+....never intended to be an MP3 player.

I have run 'tests' with a coworker who runs a PalmIII/V, we did blanket searches on a 'word' contained in our PIM databases. I retrieved my data faster on every attempt, regardless of 'type'. My device has 16 megs (8RAM/8ROM) with about 5-6MB of PIM data. Admittedly NOT scientific, but it was enough to convince the both of us.

b) Palm Multi-platform friendly. The Pocket PC is all about Windows...iPaq can run linux, and Slashdot runs stories about it regularly).

I have CF Ethernet. To send files back/forth I simply use FTP/SMTP. The Pocket PC does not sync with any Non-Windows PC PIM Software (that I am aware of). I can move files to the CasioE100 without any trouble from _ANY_ TCP/IP capable box.

c) The Pocket PC has painfully little application support. VNC? SSH? Telnet?....generally more expensive than Palm.

VNC
Telnet
SSH

There is plenty of software available. More than I can even try.

d) No wireless support yet for Pocket PC...To me at least, there's no point getting a media rich Palm device if I can't use it to access the net.
CF Modem that I use togetherwith my phone

e) Cost, Cost, Cost. You can get Palms for as little as $149 ... NEW. Lower costs mean more accessibility to the geeks that write the code. :)

You might have me on this one.

CasioE100: $600
CF Modem: $69 (MS Rebate deal)
CF Ethernet: $180
2 x 96MB CFRAM: $300 ea.
Nokia Cell Phone: $200 (or so)
Having the most technically capable, multimedia, wireless, portable Palm/Pocket (whatever) PC/PIM: Priceless.

NOTE: I bought the device based on what it _CAN_ do by leveraging the OUTSTANDING hardware in a Palm/Pocket PC (at its time 10mos.) ago. I am not a great lover of M$, but their still is no comparing this device to _ANY_ Palm product. Please be realistic and leave the Anti-M$ zealotry out of your analysis.

Even Bill will feel the pinch of lawsuits like this in every state.

True, _if_ lawsuits like this are allowed in every state. From the CNET article on the same story

Courts in Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island and Texas have dismissed similar class-action lawsuits on grounds that laws in those states don't allow them.

Even Bill will feel the pinch of lawsuits like this in every state.

True, _if_ lawsuits like this are allowed in every state. From the CNET article on the same story

Courts in Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island and Texas have dismissed similar class-action lawsuits on grounds that laws in those states don't allow them.

CNet is also carrying a version of this story here. Unliks some of the others, this isn't just a copy of the Reuters story.

frankie wrote:
If laptop hard drive prices drop below $15 per Gb, I'll expand my Wallstreet...

IBM 30GT 30 gigabyte 12.5mm laptop drives are only $437 shipped, at onvia.com:

Check the current best prices.

Following up to my own post: Here's a story on CNET. And one on Yahoo.
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R emember this?

Or how about

3dfx sues Creative over Glide

What goes around comes around. Payback's a bitch.


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It's nice to sit around and say "yeah, we'd like some money. Let's focus our efforts on making money". You still need to DO something to earn that green...for a multinational, i would argue that the immediate concern is publicity. To be known, admired, watched, loathed; any sort of attention is desirable, because then people (and by extension, $$$) are suddenly looking at a bright blue logo thinking profound thoughts like 'are you ready?'

Case in point: consider this new venture of Microsoft's. story at cnet Will it be profitable? You may think so, but anyone who's been paying attention to the book industry knows that Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Chapters (the Canadian equivalent of those outlets) are all taking huge losses on internet sales. Some transactions are being made at a loss, for a number of reasons. Why then would Microsoft choose to parlay a hand into this opportunity? Probably because the exposure is worth the expected loss.

That sort of freewheeling i can accept. If a really fat company needs to shed a few million dollars to make itself look like it's at the forefront of things, then by all means drop the cash. It's just sound business. But marketing faulty products to make waves? That might also be good business sense, but it's still WRONG...

No, if i were head of Intel, my chief concern wouldn't be our profit margin. Which is probably why i'll never be CEO of Intel.

-j

The issue I am talking about has little to do with comparing stock prices with AMD, but the fact that AMD is coming on strong, able to ship more 1 gig chip for the holiday retail season, not suffering from the same chip shortages as AMD.

And according to this recent article, all 1.13GHz chips by Intel are being recalled. Meanwhile AMD began shipping its 1.1GHz chips today.

From the AMD article:

"Shares of both companies have surged this year amid strong PC demand and the general upturn in the PC market. As of Friday, AMD shares were up more than 138 percent for the year, while Intel shares were up more than 77 percent. AMD shares split 2-for-1 last week."

We can see that AMD is coming on strong with a greater supply of chips, which I believe can be interpreted that its 4th quarter earnings are going to continue the growth trend.

The issue I am talking about has little to do with comparing stock prices with AMD, but the fact that AMD is coming on strong, able to ship more 1 gig chip for the holiday retail season, not suffering from the same chip shortages as AMD.

And according to this recent article, all 1.13GHz chips by Intel are being recalled. Meanwhile AMD began shipping its 1.1GHz chips today.

From the AMD article:

"Shares of both companies have surged this year amid strong PC demand and the general upturn in the PC market. As of Friday, AMD shares were up more than 138 percent for the year, while Intel shares were up more than 77 percent. AMD shares split 2-for-1 last week."

We can see that AMD is coming on strong with a greater supply of chips, which I believe can be interpreted that its 4th quarter earnings are going to continue the growth trend.

A CNET (news.com) article here says that IBM and Dell have stopped taking orders for boxes with this chip.

There's a link here

The general populace do believe Intel is the only chipmaker, but that belief is slowly being eroded with cheaper AMD chips coming out. Intel needs to take decisive action in the areas it already holds marketshare. Again, I feel I need to state, IANA-MBA.

Dude, reread my message. See: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1 005-200-340454.html?tag= I did not state whether or not domains are property. Merely that the system is clueless. If you disagree, then what is your opinion of these comments: "The value of a domain name is that it's a storefront," said Rich Gray, an attorney with Bergeson, Eliopoulos, Grady & Gray." "What the court is saying is unremarkable: A party seeking to get its attorney fees back can try to [tap] the assets of [the defendants] and these domains names are just like a building or property," he added. According to Morrison & Foerster attorney Jonathan Band, "It strikes me that it's an obvious ruling, but one that would need to made."

I think this is yet another example of the legal system not understanding technology, mainly the net (OMG, its a new and scary thing). For some odd reason, the system continually treats anything Internet related differently than if a law was to be applied to any other subject matter. Courts just don't get it. For instance, a court ruled in 1999 that domain names are property. What to do? I graduated law school, worked for a federal judge and became extremely frustrated -- I returned to tech. A significant number of attorneys continue to utilize WordPerfect for DOS. Most judges do not know how to use a computer. The vast number of 'high-tech' lawyers are in it for the $ and are clueless. It is interesting that a system which is suppose to apply precedent to all legal matters has, with the Internet, not applied precedent. Rather, new rules have been written for application to anything Net-related. This is great material for conspiracy theorists. However, is it simply a problem of techies unable to communicate to the legal community (i.e.: "Open Source = Anti-copyright")? Even if it was, how could techies communicate with the legal sector? Free luncheon conferences? Campaign donations? ABA and state bar advertisements? Frustrating.

Good point... isn't Sony also manufacturing portable MP3 players?

CNET has a good article here.

Mike Feibus (industry analyst) claims that the issue at hand is bunk. The problem with
news stories is that they tend to be over-reactive with broad statements on a very narrow
set of so-called facts.

Toshiba is crying for some reason that is not obvious the either you or I.

• The Register
• C|Net (twice)

• The Register
• C|Net (twice)

...PalmStation posted this article about Palm's future with the XScale technology... According to the article, "The XScale architecture offers performance roughly 20 times the Dragonball and uses less power..."

Maybe this will be foundation for PalmOS 4...
-J

Here is another article talking about Palm's interests in these new chips. I must say that I, a PalmOS PDA owner, am very interested in the possibility of jumping from a 16MHz dragonball to a 1GHz StrongARM!

Don't be so quick to jump on the GSM bandwagon. One of the great things about not being "standardized" over here is the competition that non-standardization brings. Look at all the players: AT&T, Sprint, Nextel at the national level and the baby bells and a dozen others at the regional level. What this boils down to is better service and better prices for Joe Consumer, who can get a free phone with his contract for just $29.95/month.

3G networks might take a while to roll out in the States, but when they do they'll be faster (for data) than the GSM networks, which even with GPRS are moving along a slower (read: cheaper) migration path towards 3G. (And some carriers are skipping 3G entirely in favor of 4G, which may be out around 2005/6.)

Here are some pertinent articles:

• WAP in general: http://www.theregister.co.uk/cont ent/1/12372.html
• An European's approach: http://www.smaller.com/article.cfm?id=1 560&
• 3G From an investing perspective: http://www.zdii.com /industry_list.asp?mode=news&doc_id=ZE505062 (print-friendly version)
• Some C|Net articles
  • US running behind: http:// news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-2538376.html?tag=st. ne.1002.srchres.ni
  • 3G testing in the US: http:// news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-2130459.html?tag=st. ne.1002.srchres.ni
  • 3G is coming: http:// news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-2108956.html?tag=st. ne.1002.srchres.ni
  • Groundwork laid for 3G: http://n ews.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-342851.html?tag=st.ne .1002.srchres.ni

Don't be so quick to jump on the GSM bandwagon. One of the great things about not being "standardized" over here is the competition that non-standardization brings. Look at all the players: AT&T, Sprint, Nextel at the national level and the baby bells and a dozen others at the regional level. What this boils down to is better service and better prices for Joe Consumer, who can get a free phone with his contract for just $29.95/month.

3G networks might take a while to roll out in the States, but when they do they'll be faster (for data) than the GSM networks, which even with GPRS are moving along a slower (read: cheaper) migration path towards 3G. (And some carriers are skipping 3G entirely in favor of 4G, which may be out around 2005/6.)

Here are some pertinent articles:

• WAP in general: http://www.theregister.co.uk/cont ent/1/12372.html
• An European's approach: http://www.smaller.com/article.cfm?id=1 560&
• 3G From an investing perspective: http://www.zdii.com /industry_list.asp?mode=news&doc_id=ZE505062 (print-friendly version)
• Some C|Net articles
  • US running behind: http:// news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-2538376.html?tag=st. ne.1002.srchres.ni
  • 3G testing in the US: http:// news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-2130459.html?tag=st. ne.1002.srchres.ni
  • 3G is coming: http:// news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-2108956.html?tag=st. ne.1002.srchres.ni
  • Groundwork laid for 3G: http://n ews.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-342851.html?tag=st.ne .1002.srchres.ni

Don't be so quick to jump on the GSM bandwagon. One of the great things about not being "standardized" over here is the competition that non-standardization brings. Look at all the players: AT&T, Sprint, Nextel at the national level and the baby bells and a dozen others at the regional level. What this boils down to is better service and better prices for Joe Consumer, who can get a free phone with his contract for just $29.95/month.

3G networks might take a while to roll out in the States, but when they do they'll be faster (for data) than the GSM networks, which even with GPRS are moving along a slower (read: cheaper) migration path towards 3G. (And some carriers are skipping 3G entirely in favor of 4G, which may be out around 2005/6.)

Here are some pertinent articles:

• WAP in general: http://www.theregister.co.uk/cont ent/1/12372.html
• An European's approach: http://www.smaller.com/article.cfm?id=1 560&
• 3G From an investing perspective: http://www.zdii.com /industry_list.asp?mode=news&doc_id=ZE505062 (print-friendly version)
• Some C|Net articles
  • US running behind: http:// news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-2538376.html?tag=st. ne.1002.srchres.ni
  • 3G testing in the US: http:// news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-2130459.html?tag=st. ne.1002.srchres.ni
  • 3G is coming: http:// news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-2108956.html?tag=st. ne.1002.srchres.ni
  • Groundwork laid for 3G: http://n ews.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-342851.html?tag=st.ne .1002.srchres.ni

Don't be so quick to jump on the GSM bandwagon. One of the great things about not being "standardized" over here is the competition that non-standardization brings. Look at all the players: AT&T, Sprint, Nextel at the national level and the baby bells and a dozen others at the regional level. What this boils down to is better service and better prices for Joe Consumer, who can get a free phone with his contract for just $29.95/month.

3G networks might take a while to roll out in the States, but when they do they'll be faster (for data) than the GSM networks, which even with GPRS are moving along a slower (read: cheaper) migration path towards 3G. (And some carriers are skipping 3G entirely in favor of 4G, which may be out around 2005/6.)

Here are some pertinent articles:

• WAP in general: http://www.theregister.co.uk/cont ent/1/12372.html
• An European's approach: http://www.smaller.com/article.cfm?id=1 560&
• 3G From an investing perspective: http://www.zdii.com /industry_list.asp?mode=news&doc_id=ZE505062 (print-friendly version)
• Some C|Net articles
  • US running behind: http:// news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-2538376.html?tag=st. ne.1002.srchres.ni
  • 3G testing in the US: http:// news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-2130459.html?tag=st. ne.1002.srchres.ni
  • 3G is coming: http:// news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-2108956.html?tag=st. ne.1002.srchres.ni
  • Groundwork laid for 3G: http://n ews.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-342851.html?tag=st.ne .1002.srchres.ni

From the CNET article:

• "It's not our preference to say Gnutella is infringing or that our search of Gnutella is infringing," said Ira Rothken, MP3Board's attorney. "But if a court finds that it is, we believe that AOL should share part of the blame."

• But it goes on to argue that if it loses the suit, AOL and Time Warner should help shoulder any penalties because of their indirect role in creating Gnutella.

This was also covered at News.com



Being with you, it's just one epiphany after another

Try this link at CNET for more information.

---
Jon E. Erikson

The MPAA/RIAA look like they are playing a silly game. They look like they don't know what they are doing and have little hope of actually succeeding at defeating "online piracy". Take a look at the participant's list of the SDMI. Included in there is everyone needed to control digital music. You have number 60, the Fraunhofer Institute. They own the patents on the mpeg format. As early as tommorrow they could have every mp3 player declared illegal and pulled off the net, just look at the DeCSS if you have any doubts. Speaking of DeCSS, it doesn't really matter if the encryption Microsoft (number 106) puts on their latest streaming media format is easily crackable, it's illegal to do so. But who says Fraunhofer will be able to track down the owners of every mp3 player out there? After all, the most popular mp3 player (Winamp) is written by a bunch of "nihilistic media terrorists" at Nullsoft who we are told we should ph34r. I have to agree, especially seeing they are owned by AOL (number 10). Can the SDMI put the genie back in the bottle? If you asked me that last year I would have said (and did say) no way. My argument was the same as Martin Eberhard, the CEO of Nuvomedia: "It doesn't matter how good the cryptography is," Eberhard says. "Once [the music] is decrypted, you just bypass the cryptography and re-rip the music into an MP3." Which is all well and good, but what if you can't play said mp3's? What if owning an mp3 player (or the encoder) is a violation of patent law.

So what's my predictions for the future? Your favourite artists will start releasing music in the new SDMI format that you need Windows Media Player to play and you will pay per song. You will probably even have to be online to play the songs. Fraunhofer will reign in their patents and Winamp will silently disappear. That's when the story will break. Everyone will snap to attention around that point because cease and decist letters will be sent out to every web site that hosts an mp3 player. Go ahead and rip into mp3, there will be no players. Microsoft will break the sound playing dll's on Windows (probably to give some new feature to digital playback) and only the underground will still have players. The mainstream will buy their SDMI music and players and that whole nasty incident around the turn of the century where copyright was doubted by the few and ignored by the many will be stamped out of history.

And IBM is incorporating the NUMA technology it acquired when it bought Sequent into it's server lines. The new server will be called Regatta, with two 1GHz + CPU's strapped together in a single chip. CNET has a couple of good articles about this here and here

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And IBM is incorporating the NUMA technology it acquired when it bought Sequent into it's server lines. The new server will be called Regatta, with two 1GHz + CPU's strapped together in a single chip. CNET has a couple of good articles about this here and here

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Interesting how Slashdot announces the IPO but not the shipping of actual product. My, how what "matters" to nerds has changed in a year!

Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers

Thank god K&R entitled their book, The C Programming Language.:)

I thought that the DoJ were going to take this to the Supreme Court. I don't recall reading about such an appeal as of yet.

FYI...The actual source is slated to not be released until next month (if all goes as planned). At that time it will be in developerWorks. After this CNET article mentioned this...it has been announced as public news. The link I sent in was where it will eventually be put. For the press release click here . For more specific information on AFS, you might try the Transarc website.

-Erik (from IBM) :)

For those of you that have fogotten, IBM demonstrated a PowerPC chip running at 1 Ghz way back in 1998 (the chip ran at 1 GHz when cooled to 25 degrees Celcius, at room temperature it ran just at just under 500 MHz). Check out CNET's take on the event: IBM joins the 1,000-MHz club.

The 1 Ghz PowerPC IBM demonstrated way back in 1998 was partially hand tooled. This chip broke many of the processes IBM uses to automate production of the PowerPC. Check outwhat the EE Times said about the chip at the time: IBM's 1-GHz processor taxes current EDA tools.

More recently, TechWeb states some of IBM's plans for the PowerPC: IBM Preps SOI-Based PowerPCs.

To see what is available today, and what is coming in the short term future, look at IBM's product page for the PowerPC at: http://www.chips.ibm.com/products/powerp c/.

IBM intends to have out 700MHz PowerPCs for its RS/6000 line by early next year for its RS/6000 line. It would make very little sense for Apple to not start shoving these into new Macs when they become available.

IBM has had very little trouble scaling the PPC up as it needs to for its line of servers. I really wonder why Motorola seems to be having so much trouble in the MHz race.

OTOH, I remember 3rd party benchmarks that showed a Motorola PPC at 350 MHz smoking an Intel x86 at 500 MHz at Photoshop. And this was back in the day when x86 had MMX and PPC had no Alti-vec. FYI, the MMX instructions allowed the Intel box (running NT) to perform one or two tests slightly faster than the Apple box running Mac OS. Given this type of history, I can see Motorola being arrogant enough to think it doesn't need to keep up the MHz. But its time for Motorola to wake up and smell the coffee.

On a related note, there is a rumor that Palm is going to drop the 68k Motorola series in favor of the StrongARM series mostly because of the MHz.

Motorola better get some MHz action in a hurry. Despite an overall faster chip, eventually a double/triple clock speed advantage will catch up. I doubt a 1GHz T-Bird does much slower than a .5 GHz PPC, especially given Apple's slower bus.

Linkage:
http://news.cnet.com/ news/0-1005-200-331625.html?st.ne.fd.mdh
http://goinside.com/97/2/cowpland.html http://www.pcwor
ld.com/news/newsradio/cowpland/cowpland_trans.ht ml

Gateway and America Online have also added their support, committing to use chips from Transmeta for an Internet access device.

Yahoo given a rundown on this allready. Much more info than some (possibly made up) screen shot.
Story is here.

Looks like Gamera works on RH 6.1 and is built from the Gecko technology.

The next reduction in size will be to .13 micron. Intel is planning to make this transition on the P-III and P-4 chips in about Q3 of 2001. Slashdot posted this about the coming chips and micron size reductions. CNET has a story which is what the slashdot story is about. The CNET story though comes from this story of InQuest Market Research. Hope you like chip road maps as much as I do :)

...PocketPC makers like Compaq have been unable to keep up with the demand for their devices.

Hey, Zico. I found something you might enjoy.

Here's a recent Cnet article with their latest flunky.

Here's an interesting exchange:

You mentioned the availability issue with the iPaq. The product has not been widely available, despite the fact that it launched in April. Now Compaq is saying it may not be fully available until the fourth quarter. What happened?

The reason the supply is short is because the manufacturers didn't build enough devices. They recognize that now, and they're rushing as fast as they can to build more devices. Of course, because of their lead times in acquiring components, now it's taking them some time to go back and correct their forecasting mistakes.

Do you think the fact that they were not making enough devices indicates a lack of full commitment to this market?

No, I don't really think it's any indication of lack of commitment. If there was any lack of commitment, it certainly would have disappeared at this point. Forecasting is an inexact science. We certainly expected more units to be sold. We're very excited about the product itself. And I think they've gone back and now it's sort of like I think we're right.

I like how this idiot tries to blame Compaq's reluctance to build CE devices on their "forecasting mistakes". Typical Microsoft attitude. I wonder whereever Compaq could have developed such an attitude about a Microsoft eMbedded (to use your gay spellling) operating system.

So what's it going to be, Zico? Are they realling selling like hotcakes or are the few dozen that were made selling?

Perhaps you can enlighten about the marketplace.

Mmmkay?

Online bookie sentenced for offshore gambling site

Enjoy!