Slashdot Mirror

CDWert writes: "EE Times is reporting MIPS is teaming up with Toshiba, to develop their next generation 64 bit proccesor. After all the Itanium Speak and X86-64 talk going on here and the premature predictions of MIPS demise, through their inability to fund the next round I thought this would be refresing to MIPS fans." According to the article though, there will be no product until at least a year from now.

morcheeba writes: "EETimes is reporting that the licensing of MPEG-4 patents will be substantially different than the existing MPEG-2 licenses. The per-player fee will be substantially cheaper ($0.25 instead of $2.50), but a new "use fee" component of $0.02/hour will be charged to service providers. More on MPEG-4 in general at MacWeek; The MPEG-4 Industry Forum and MPEG LA are handling the licenses."

Fly writes: "According to EETimes, an Austin startup company is close to producing CRTs with cold-emission electron guns. They claim this will reduce the parts needed for electron guns as well as allow for greater control and deflection of the electron beams leading to thinner CRTs. Their technology uses older chip-manufacturing techniquest to deposit diamond tips for the guns on silicon wafers. They hope to enter the CRT market next year."

Weedstock writes: "EE Times has an article about Intel's next decade roadmap. It explains what are the current issues with the actual "plastic bumped organic land grid array" packaging technology and how it will be modified into a "bumpless package with built-up layers" to accomodate billion-transistor processors."

Weedstock writes: "EE Times has an article about Intel's next decade roadmap. It explains what are the current issues with the actual "plastic bumped organic land grid array" packaging technology and how it will be modified into a "bumpless package with built-up layers" to accomodate billion-transistor processors."

As you might know, Slashdot runs on Greenwich Mean Time. That means that you're reading the last story posted in 2001, in which we've gathered some more year-end submissions. Happy New Year to all, no matter what time zone you're in! Zargo writes: "Infosync.no has a great collection of articles named Rewind 2001 looking back at the best stories of 2001. Lots of cool gadgets in there. Samsung 3G prototypes, a car designed by Bella and Nokia, soft hardware by IDEO, Siemens wristphone, Compaq's project Mercury, the Agende VR3 Linux based PDA, the Pogo, Psion's über gadgets, Handspring's Treo, Fathammer's X-Forge, Samsungs YOPY (Linux PDA), Sharp's Zaurus SL-5500 including screenshots. Lots and lots of cool stuff to read."

Speaking of Stuff, Dave Gould writes: "I have published my picks for the 2001 Stuff of the Year. Here's hoping for lots of neat new stuff in 2002!" I bet high that stuff continues to arrive. Maybe even more IT.

Weedstock writes: "EE Times has a list of 15 interesting articles about technologies to watch in 2002. One of those articles, Software model needs overhaul, explains the current problems with computer processing and describes new technologies (Such as the Reconfigurable Architecture Workstation processor from MIT) that will affect this domain in the next year."

uninet writes: "'Looking back over the past year, I think most people would have to agree it has been a ground breaking time for open source. While it is true that open source companies suffered just like the rest of the tech sector from poor economic conditions, those same conditions have also made open source appear even more attractive.'" Here's the rest of Open For Business' analysis of the year past and coming.

There are plenty more year-end wrap-ups filled with bulleted lists and instant nostalgia, but few can top Llewyn, who writes: "The couple who met on Slashdot two years ago are celebrating their first wedding anniversary! you can email them at scott@asofyet.org and elysse@asofyet.org or visit their reminiscing website." Congratulations!

For those into New Year's festivities of the more athletic (and semi-athletic) variety, burntfungus writes with words on "Security and open 802.11b WLAN Access Points along the Rose Parade route, Pasadena's yearly event that allow anyone to be a street person for two nights a year! If you get cold there are many places to get a hot cup of coffee or hot chocolate. Watch floats (on webcam, blimps and low flying stealth bombers! Find a public WLAN access point or two."

At least partly wrapping up one of this year's oddest stories, several readers have submitted a link to a CNN story which says that Dmitry Sklyarov has returned home to Russia, and has already raised a toast with his wife and children. I hope Dmitry's treated a little differently on his next visit to the U.S. suwain_2 adds a link to this Newsforge story as well.

Gregg Favalora writes "According to this week's EE Times, R. Colin Johnson reports that researchers at UC San Diego have directly observed the physical changes that neurons undergo during learning. His article explains that neurons were cultured on a smooth, photoconductive silion substrate. Using optical techniques, they were able to trigger individual neurons into firing -- and were actually able to observe some of the physical changes that underly short- and long-term learning. According to the article, "[The team] tested out the theory that learning results from a physical change that strengthens the connections between selected neurons. [They showed] how short- and long-term memories result from different physical effects in the brain. Short-term memories, it turns out, result from the instant assembly of more filaments to strengthen the skin of the cell temporarily, whereas long-term memories result from the growing of a new synapse to strengthen the connection permanently." Besides the interesting cellular observations they're making, I am also intrigued by the process the article describes which uses properties of the silicon substrate to aid in firing individual neurons. "

An EETimes article a few days ago reports that the European Central Bank is planning to add RFID tags to euro bank notes. This would allow each bill to be tracked whenever it is used, and if the chip includes writable memory, to even record its own history.

Robert Gallagher writes: "Last week, at http://www.kttech.com/comp.html, KT-Tech released a demo of their video codec running at 32 Kbps. According to the web page and discussion on comp.compression, this codec is 'symmetric,' meaning encoding is just as fast as decoding, and that both can be done in software and in real-time. While Nancy is getting good press for its light decoding cost, KT-Tech is apparently trying to get into the two-way wireless communication market. One question to ponder: Would we really want cameras on our cell-phones?"

brian wang writes "Matrix semiconductor has taped out 64 Mbyte write once chip. It is 8 layer memory that can be made at standard fabs. They will be made at Taiwan Semiconductor initially in a 0.25micron process. It will be compatible with Flash. Obviously when they move to 0.18 micron and 0.13 and 0.10 micron processes that already are producing chips the memory size will shoot up to rival CDRoms from single chips. Revolutionary impact for handhelds, PCs, ROMDrives etc..." See, I knew it: Little is better.

Wolfger writes: "A new file transfer protocol talked about in EE Times gets data from one place to another without actually transmitting the data..." Well, the information is transmitted, just not in its original form. I think there are a couple of other places working on similar ideas - wasn't there a company using this for a fast file download application? User would go to download a game demo or something, receive pieces from several different places, and knit them together? Wish I could recall the company's name.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this article in EETimes, Microsoft previewed its next generation Windows Media technology, and said that chipset makers that account for 90% of home DVD players will be including the technology in their upcoming chipsets. I hope the various courts looking into Microsoft's monopoly examine this closely, there is a lot of potential for Microsoft to extend its monopoly here. The next logical step would be for them to pay movie studios to produce Windows Media format movies that are available before or cost less than regular DVD format, that is, if they are made available in regular DVD format at all! This would also be a neat way for studios to force us all to upgrade our existing DVD players use the now-cracked CSS." Ton van der Liet points out this article on ZDNet, writing: "Microsoft touts the advantages of Windows Media, such as longer playback. Wasn't MPEG-4 supposed to do this? And aren't the newest Windows Media codecs based on a draft of the MPEG-4 standard?"

A.L. Blais writes: "By using the molecular-recognition capabilities of living cells, scientists have made selective electrical contacts to neurons."

Justin Rossi writes: "EE Times has an article about Nancy, 'the lightest video codec' which is taking Asia by storm and finally bringing streaming Video to handheld devices. What I wonder is how it shall fare against MPEG-4, Ogg Tarkin, and MC-10."

Justin Rossi writes: "EE Times has an article about Nancy, 'the lightest video codec' which is taking Asia by storm and finally bringing streaming Video to handheld devices. What I wonder is how it shall fare against MPEG-4, Ogg Tarkin, and MC-10."

An Anonymous Coward writes: ""A clone of the ARM7 32-bit RISC processor core, previously available free for download from the Internet, has been taken down or hidden" pending discussions between the core's designer and a Chinese representative of ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England)." Remember, this is a reverse-engineered "clone in the form of a synthesizable Verilog language description."

GFD writes: "The EETimes has a story about a DARPA program to develop a new class of electronics and system architecture based on smart fabrics. Some of the more interesting challenges include networking protocols and fault tolerance. Routing between buttons? What happens if your CPU gets a rip??"

GFD writes: "The EETimes has a story about a DARPA program to develop a new class of electronics and system architecture based on smart fabrics. Some of the more interesting challenges include networking protocols and fault tolerance. Routing between buttons? What happens if your CPU gets a rip??"

ddillman writes to us with a story from EEtimes that is reporting that the US Government, specifically the PTO, is hiring up to 500 electrical engineers to help assess the validity of new patent claims on technical gadgets. Good - and with the downturn in the high tech industry you can get them cheap.

saitouhajime writes: "Matsushita is reporting that they've developed a method of storing 100 Gigabytes onto a standard sized dvd. Articles can be found here(1) and here(2)." 100GB on a disk would be a nice way to store backups -- but since the DVD consortium hasn't made any promises, this format may remain just a demo technology forever.

IvyMike writes: "EE Times has an interesting article on the development of desktop biodetectors that could quickly detect the presence of pathogens like anthrax and smallpox. It uses some pretty cool technology to identify the target pathogen's DNA. Too bad we don't have these things today."

IvyMike writes: "EE Times has an interesting article on the development of desktop biodetectors that could quickly detect the presence of pathogens like anthrax and smallpox. It uses some pretty cool technology to identify the target pathogen's DNA. Too bad we don't have these things today."

km790816 writes: "In this post I joked about wanting an optical bus on my PC. In the last week I've seen two articles from The Register and EETimes discussing the real possibility. Both mention high bandwidth and lower heat and power usage. Sounds good to me."

GFD writes: "The EETimes has a story about a new class of hybrid digital/optical signal processors that are programmable and offer tera-ops performance potential for relatively low cost and power requirements. No fundamental breakthroughs but rather a very slick use of existing optical networking components to create a programmable optical processor that looks to the rest of the world like a single chip digital signal processor. Elegant and impressive if they can deliver."

GFD writes: "The EETimes has a story about a new class of hybrid digital/optical signal processors that are programmable and offer tera-ops performance potential for relatively low cost and power requirements. No fundamental breakthroughs but rather a very slick use of existing optical networking components to create a programmable optical processor that looks to the rest of the world like a single chip digital signal processor. Elegant and impressive if they can deliver."

CBravo writes: "The EE Times has a story that talks about the SSSCA and how it divides the industry. Short part:'If approved, the law would be enforceable under federal regulations and could dramatically alter the way system OEMs design and develop PCs, TVs, set-tops or other digital appliances with embedded microprocessors, according to industry sources familiar with the Hollings proposal. The motion-picture industry, with the Disney and Fox studios in the lead, backs the legislation.'" If you thought the DMCA was bad, look out -- the SSSCA would inject far more control into a wide range of electronic devices.

Foredecker writes: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I read an EE Times article about about remote breathalyzer technology developed by TCU. This device is apparently intended for installation in new cars. In essence, it is a sensor in your car which would signal any nearby police if you had been drinking."

Foredecker writes: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I read an EE Times article about about remote breathalyzer technology developed by TCU. This device is apparently intended for installation in new cars. In essence, it is a sensor in your car which would signal any nearby police if you had been drinking."

NegaMaxAlphaBeta writes: "For those of you interested in Intel's Itanium 64 bit processor, EETimes has a nice update article to let us know what's happening with this beast. With an 8 stage pipeline, as opposed to the 20 stage pipeline in the P4, clock frequencies are obviously not as high (~1 GHz). Other notable numbers extracted from the article: 130 Watts power consumption, 328 registers, 6 MB of onchip L3 cache ... quite nice (well, not the power thing). I'm sure many people can appreciate 64 bit integer ops; for me, it means single instruction xor for the 64 bit hash codes used in chess transposition tables."

An Anonymous Coward writes: "EE Times has an article about a new technique to build custom-designed networks from biological neurons using chip lithography and polymers to steer the growth of the neurons . Some of the first computers were described as "electronic brains" to the unwashed masses - will researchers have to describe these as "biological computers"?"

doug13 writes: "A Rice University student cracks 802.11x encryption protocol in a week. Here is how he did it." We mentioned the cryptographic paper that underlies this attack a few days ago.

GFD writes: "The EETimes has a story about a relavtively old protocol for structured information call ASN.1 could be used to compress a 200 byte XML document to 2 bytes and few bits. I wonder if the same could be done with XHTML or even regular HTML."

GFD writes: "The EETimes has a story about a relavtively old protocol for structured information call ASN.1 could be used to compress a 200 byte XML document to 2 bytes and few bits. I wonder if the same could be done with XHTML or even regular HTML."

GFD writes: "EETimes has a story about software that dynamically translates the binary of a program targeted for one processor (say x86) to another (say MIPS). Like Transmeta they have incorporated optimization routines and claim that they have improved execution times between one RISC architecture and another by 25%. This may break the hammer lock that established architectures have on the market and open the door for a renaissance in computer architecture."

GFD writes: "EETimes has a story about software that dynamically translates the binary of a program targeted for one processor (say x86) to another (say MIPS). Like Transmeta they have incorporated optimization routines and claim that they have improved execution times between one RISC architecture and another by 25%. This may break the hammer lock that established architectures have on the market and open the door for a renaissance in computer architecture."

gabbarsingh sent this in via punchcard: "What's happening at Sun on the MAJC front? They haven't released anything new on that. The first samples were promised in first half of 2000." MAJC (pronounced "magic"), stands for Microprocessor Architecture for Java Computing, and according to EDTN is the only hardware java implementation that combines both multithreading and multiprocessing. It seems that "Java on a Chip" solutions are more commonplace now, than they were when Rockwell released the first, back in 1997. Might the promise of code that you can "Write Once, Run Anywhere" soon become reality, now that there is an actual platform on which it can run (rather than piggybacking on other platforms via JVMs)?

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Nearly everything electronic has drastically evolved over my lifetime with the exception of the antenna up till now. The widely respected EETimes has a story about a company called e-tenna that is using microelectromechanical technology to bring the "elusive goal of a software-defined radio one step closer to reality". This is the type of thing that deserves a patent!" The idea here is to have a radio device capable of transmitting/receiving over a wide range of wavelengths without any moving parts, and instead of a set of inductors and capacitors for tuning, it does most of the "work" in a general-purpose chip.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Nearly everything electronic has drastically evolved over my lifetime with the exception of the antenna up till now. The widely respected EETimes has a story about a company called e-tenna that is using microelectromechanical technology to bring the "elusive goal of a software-defined radio one step closer to reality". This is the type of thing that deserves a patent!" The idea here is to have a radio device capable of transmitting/receiving over a wide range of wavelengths without any moving parts, and instead of a set of inductors and capacitors for tuning, it does most of the "work" in a general-purpose chip.

km790816 writes: "I was just reading an article in the EETimes about the possible war over the technology to replace the PCI bus. Intel has their 3GIO. (Can't find any info on Intel's site.) AMD has their HyperTransport. There has been some talk about HyperTransport going into the XBox. I hope they can agree on a bus. I don't want another bus standard war. So when can I get a fully optical bus on my PC?" Now that's what I'd like: cheap transceivers on every card and device, and short lengths of fiber connecting them up. Bye bye to SCSI, IDE, USB, Firewire ...

km790816 writes: "I was just reading an article in the EETimes about the possible war over the technology to replace the PCI bus. Intel has their 3GIO. (Can't find any info on Intel's site.) AMD has their HyperTransport. There has been some talk about HyperTransport going into the XBox. I hope they can agree on a bus. I don't want another bus standard war. So when can I get a fully optical bus on my PC?" Now that's what I'd like: cheap transceivers on every card and device, and short lengths of fiber connecting them up. Bye bye to SCSI, IDE, USB, Firewire ...

Anonymous Coward writes "The EETimes is running a story about an OSU team that has used atomic force microscopes to measure friction in micro-electro-mechanical devices and have developed a method of lubricating the devices with a baked-on (no jokes please) lubricant. Apparently this lubricant is better than vapor-deposited diamond coatings at these minute scales. Read the article here."

Anonymous Coward writes "The EETimes is running a story about an OSU team that has used atomic force microscopes to measure friction in micro-electro-mechanical devices and have developed a method of lubricating the devices with a baked-on (no jokes please) lubricant. Apparently this lubricant is better than vapor-deposited diamond coatings at these minute scales. Read the article here."

kilrogg points to "a story from eetimes.com on Microsoft's refusal to include Bluetooth support in their next versions of Windows. They seem to think (as most of us) that 802.11b has a better chance of succeeding." The article cites the recent flopped Bluetooth demo at CeBIT. I'm pretty neutral on Bluetooth, but when's the last time a new technology's first big public demo was perfect?

uglomera writes: "LEON, the open-source CPU developed for the European Space Agency, has been successfully manufactured and tested by Atmel on an Atmel ATC35. Gaisler Research, whose CEO Jiri Gaisler wrote the VHDL model of LEON, also offers a real time kernel, simulator, a cross-compiler, etc. for this SPARC-family processor designed for space applications. Check it out." You can find more good information on the LEON processor on the Gaisler site, including diagrams and further reading. Open Source hardware running Free software -- wheee!

sacremon writes: "An article in EETimes reports on a recent meeting to finally bring Ethernet to the home user directly, rather than using broadband technology like DSL or Cable. At this point, they're only in the planning stages, and they don't expect to see implementation till sometime in 2003. Nonetheless, I would love to have a 100Mbps/full duplex line direct to the house. I can see the self help manual now -- 'OSPF and BGP for Dummies.'" Ethernet could bring good rates (for both data and dollars, if this article is correct), but I'm still looking forward to fiber running straight into the basement.

sacremon writes: "An article in EETimes reports on a recent meeting to finally bring Ethernet to the home user directly, rather than using broadband technology like DSL or Cable. At this point, they're only in the planning stages, and they don't expect to see implementation till sometime in 2003. Nonetheless, I would love to have a 100Mbps/full duplex line direct to the house. I can see the self help manual now -- 'OSPF and BGP for Dummies.'" Ethernet could bring good rates (for both data and dollars, if this article is correct), but I'm still looking forward to fiber running straight into the basement.

zarsky99 writes: "EETimes is reporting that Japanese researchers are close to creating the world's first single-atom transistor. This could be a boon to power problems and Moore's Law. The article is here, and please enjoy. Now if they could only get a single girl to date me." OK, you take the transistor, I'll take the girl ;) J adds: For those of you graphing Moore's Wacky Law: November1999, 50nm; November1999, 18nm; October2000, 1nm; December2000, 30nm; five days ago, 30nm. We don't make the semiconductors, we just report 'em.

Texas writes "Check out this new development in HDTV signal-encoding tech. As you know, HDTV currently requires an entirely separate broadcast channel, which the FCC have allocated to current broadcasters in order to simulcast HDTV and regular NTSC signals. This new tech from Los Alamos puts the HDTV info into the current NTSC band, and is even compatable with analog TV (which won't see the additional HDTV data since it's hidden in vestigal sidebands and unused closed caption data space). Also, this new method only requires slight changes to current NTSC broadcast stations and HDTV receivers, and will not make current analog sets obsolete."

GoBears writes: "during the bountyquest payout thread, werdna referred to the recent Festo decision by the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. now, EETimes has an article that talks about the possible implications of this decision (if it is upheld)."

GoBears writes: "during the bountyquest payout thread, werdna referred to the recent Festo decision by the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. now, EETimes has an article that talks about the possible implications of this decision (if it is upheld)."