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Palin Majere writes, "News.com is reporting that Intel is once again having problems with its RAMBUS memory chipsets. This time, it's affecting the i820 and i840 chipsets, and is located in the chipsets (MRH and MTH) that allow customers to use regular SDRAM memory instead of RAMBUS memory. It causes memory corruption and has already caused Intel to cancel three motherboard designs as a result. " With the continuing shortage of high-end Pentium processors, and stuff like this, it's no wonder that AMD has been doing better and better.

From Wes Peters, via DaemonNews. Intel's InBusiness Storage Station is a network file server in-a-box. Intel, despite their investment in Linux companies, is using FreeBSD as their OS of choice, as they are now stating. Of particular interest is their Mean Time Between Failure, 77,244 hours, or a shade under 9 years. That's probably a little on the low side, but quite respectable nonetheless.

Anonymous Freak writes "Well, it's finally official - Intel has released their "Coppermine" processors. Their press release page has a bunch of information, including the release of the OR840 board, and its accompanying i840 chipset. " 15 new processors, with the 733 Mhz going for $776 right now. Check out Yahoo's coverage of what Intel is hoping to get out of this (Hint: The word starts with a p, ends with a t, and has rofi in the middle).

Anonymous Freak writes "Well, it's finally official - Intel has released their "Coppermine" processors. Their press release page has a bunch of information, including the release of the OR840 board, and its accompanying i840 chipset. " 15 new processors, with the 733 Mhz going for $776 right now. Check out Yahoo's coverage of what Intel is hoping to get out of this (Hint: The word starts with a p, ends with a t, and has rofi in the middle).

mulan writes "Following a successful email sent from a Solaris64 box, Sun announced today that the Solaris Operating Environment is running on engineering prototype systems based on Intel's Itanium processor. The press release is on line, while meatier details, white papers and documentation are available at the Solaris64 developer center. "

hkon writes "Nokia and Intel are apparently going to make a set-top box that "integrates the internet and digital TV" Intel claims it'll "change the nature of television". Does that mean I can't watch silly american sitcoms on sunday mornings anymore? =)" Talks about internet TV delivery, which I'm a big fan of. But something tells me that'll be awhile.

Anonymous Freak writes "Well, Intel has finally decided on a name for the first IA-64 processor. The processor formerly known as Merced is now called "Itanium". Boy, and I thought "Pentium" was a silly name when it first came out." Itanium - the mind boggles. Forget this - I'm still calling it Merced - although Itanium is targeted "at the Internet Economy" according to the press release *gag*.

Anonymous Freak writes "Well, Intel has finally decided on a name for the first IA-64 processor. The processor formerly known as Merced is now called "Itanium". Boy, and I thought "Pentium" was a silly name when it first came out." Itanium - the mind boggles. Forget this - I'm still calling it Merced - although Itanium is targeted "at the Internet Economy" according to the press release *gag*.

BRTB writes "It seems that Intel has actually done something right: realized that its new 820 chipset (with Rambus memory support and speed increases) is so expensive for computer builders and end users - on the order of $500 added to the cost of an 820-equipped machine - that it's decided to cut back on production. Check out the News.com article here."

BRTB writes "It seems that Intel has actually done something right: realized that its new 820 chipset (with Rambus memory support and speed increases) is so expensive for computer builders and end users - on the order of $500 added to the cost of an 820-equipped machine - that it's decided to cut back on production. Check out the News.com article here."

Tekmage writes "Intel has just announced that they'll be shipping their ethernet encryption co-processor in their fourth quarter. Definitely a must (IMHO) for anyone considering wireless networking. "

mathowie writes "Here's my notes from the 30th Internet anniversary event that took place at UCLA on Thursday. This is a very long, very detailed piece, but worth your time to read if you're interested in learning where the Internet might be heading in the next 5 - 10 years. A Recap of the 30th Anniversary of the Internet Celebration at UCLA September 2, 1999 by Matthew Haughey

Thirty years ago today, the first communication between the Interface Message Processor (IMP) and a host computer took place in a Computer Science Lab at UCLA. The ARPAnet was born, with four nodes by the end of 1969. Today amid the current explosion of Internet growth, the pioneers gathered along with the forerunners of the internet revolution to commemorate that first event and talk about where we are today and where we go from here.

As I walked in, I caught Leonard Kleinrock in the lobby being mobbed by reporters doing interviews in front of the original IMP. As you can see in the photo, several local news and radio outlets covered the event. I had hoped to see some of the footage on the 11 o'clock news, but as I write this, it's just after 11:30, and I only saw a few seconds and quick mention on one of the network news shows.

After 20 minutes of mulling around past the original start time, The Chancellor started off the event with a quick welcome and general speech about how the internet has spread and enriched our lives. The Chair of the Engineering School at UCLA spoke next for about 15 minutes, discussing the impact of Leonard Kleinrock's achievements and Len's great rapport with his former students.

Len Kleinrock took the stage and recounted the 20th Anniversary event, which was a symposium held at UCLA, the 25th Anniversary event, which was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a recent gathering just a few days ago up in Stanford. Those events, he said, focused on the rich history of how the ARPAnet was built and how it eventually lead up what we call The Internet today. Rather than delve into the past, he went on, today's event was going to center around where the Internet will lead us into the future. I was a bit surprised at first, but relieved that I wasn't going to see a rehash of the history, but a refreshing dialogue between the brilliant set of panelists of what they felt was to come.

Dr. Kleinrock then laid down the ground rules for the day. There would be four panels, and he would act as chair of the event, introducing each moderator. He introduced the first panel, titled "Gorillas", which was supposed to represent the proverbial 900 lb. gorillas of the Internet industry. Joining the moderator, Kipling Hagopian of Brentwood Venture Capital were Christine Hemrick of Cisco, Daniel Rosen of Microsoft, George Vradenburg of AOL, and Ronald Whittier of Intel.

Everyone on the panel was in good spirits and took some gentle jabs from the moderator. When the moderator made a joke about the justice department's crackdown on Microsoft, the representatives of Microsoft and AOL both praised the low regulation of the industry thus far and accredited their rapid and extreme growth with the "hands off" policy of the U.S. government. They also stated their support for ICANN and the deregulation of the Internet's domain namespace.

In response to a question about the growth of Cisco, Christine Hemrick praised openness and non-ownership of industry standards like TCP/IP. Since no one owned TCP/IP, she said, anyone could start a company that based their communications on that protocol. The moderator asked several questions about bringing broadband into the home, and whether cable or DSL would be the key technology. Ms. Hemrick stressed that wireless technologies might surpass the capabilities and availability of cable and DSL very soon, which was a good thing to hear.

The panelists were a sharp group of people. Whenever a question about upcoming technology was posed, they acknowledged the fact that the industry moves so fast that no one knows what we will be using in 5 years for any specific technology. They pointed to the audience several times and said that someone among us could start a new company tomorrow with technology that could blow away anything their corporations had done before. When the panel was asked about the longevity of their large corporations, they agreed that scalability was important, to grow with the industry, but trying to stay as close as possible to customers and continuing to address their needs was also important.

All the panelists talked about how hard it was to stay ahead of everyone, to continue as industry leaders with so many competitors on their heels. When asked about the future, one panelist commented that soon the term "e-commerce" would be meaningless, due to a blurring between conventional commerce and commerce done over the Internet. Someday soon, they said, every business would have some aspect of it that would be Internet related. All in all, the four panelists were charismatic, well-spoken, and a hip bunch, making a few jokes about Al Gore inventing the Internet.

The second panel was for the people behind recent industry successes, titled "Netpreneurs." It was moderated by Willem Mesdag of Goldman Sachs and the panelists were David Bohnett, founder of GeoCities, Eric Brewer, co-founder of Inktomi, Sky Dayton, founder of EarthLink, John Payne, CEO of Stamps.com, and Henry Sameueli, co-founder of Broadcom.

It was amazing that no company represented on the panel was created before 1991, with most of them formed in either 1995 or 1996, yet they all had market caps of at least a billion dollars each. Overall, the second panel wasn't as interesting as the first bunch of panelists, some of their answers sounded like a press release. This was especially true for Sky Dayton, who sounded like he was repeating his radio commercials in response to every question he was asked. When asked how they became successful, each panelist talked about how their company filled a void not covered by a larger company, and how they could move faster than a large corporation. Sky Dayton stressed this, the size of your company compared to your competitors was unimportant. What mattered most was the speed at which you could respond to changes in the industry, economy, and customer base. He said that if you were starting a new company, focus on one specific area of the market, and stick to it. Don't try to be monolithic agencies that can do everything like Microsoft tries to be, he said, just do one thing really well and you can emerge as a market leader. He also pitched his new company eCompanies.com for budding entrepreneurs, they are setting up a clearinghouse of new ideas, and intend to fund business plans that catch their eye. When asked about the potential for new companies Dayton said something interesting, he estimated that the development of the Internet as a "thing" was about 20% done at most. That even in 1999, we were just barely scratching the surface of what is possible, he said. Overall the session was enlightening and I came away with a new found enthusiasm to get my ideas out the door.

The third panel was perhaps the most interesting. It was titled "eConsumers" and was moderated by Patt Morrison of the LA Times, who was joined by John Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Jeffrey Cole, director of UCLA's Center for Communication Policy, Alan Kay, VP of Imagineering at Disney, and Dan Lynch, founder of Cybercash.

Although the panel was supposed to focus only on consumer issues, the topics discussed ran the gamut, from personal privacy issues to numerous "what if" scenarios of our future ultra-wired world, and the social implications of each. Patt Morrison moderated as a sort of devil's advocate, asking for the panel's reaction to several cynical questions like trusting e-commerce vendors, internet rumors becoming news, and how our lives may be hindered by the burden of technology. Surprisingly, the panel, which had varied opinions on most topics, all found something positive in each question and future scenario. An ebay deal gone bad meant a user could learn to be more careful of sellers, news could not be trusted and should be approached with skepticism, and our lives could be made much better by an increased use of technology by saving us time spent on mundane tasks like paying bills or waiting in lines while shopping.

Intellectual property and copyright issues were discussed, where John Barlow and Alan Kay agreed that intellectual property was dead, and that ideas should be given away freely. Mr. Barlow talked about how every article he's written is freely available online, which allows him to generate revenue from unwritten works. Publishers can see all his writing, he went on, and they pay for new pieces to be written. He said he didn't worry about copyright, because his most valuable ideas were the ones he hasn't had yet. John said it was the philosophy behind the Grateful Dead (whom he wrote songs for); they allowed their shows to be freely taped and exchanged, and they derived revenue from people wanting to see them perform live.

Alan and John also talked about how a lot of intellectual property is meaningless to much of the population, that a technical idea is so complex that few people understand it, regardless of whether or not it is in the public domain. Dr. Kay used Linux as an example of this, the kernel is so complex that one in a million people can understand it all and contribute programming expertise. But with the advent of the Internet, he added, finding that one in a million is easy, and 100 or more people can be brought together to work on it. He praised the development of the ARPAnet because it was open, allowing researchers from all over to contribute to a greater good, and said in today's climate a large corporation would probably try to make much of it proprietary and hinder its development.

When asked how Linux can generate revenue, Alan said that like the Grateful Dead example, giving away Linux meant that large fees could be found in consulting, helping companies use the technology to their advantage. He then mentioned something that dropped just about everyone's jaw: he said that the company with the biggest revenue in the computer industry was not Microsoft, but IBM's consulting business, which he said brings in double the revenue that Microsoft does selling software, just by showing companies how to use technology in their business (which Linux is a part of). Alan Kay stood out as an extremely articulate guy with numerous enlightened answers, and everyone on the panel had great things to say about what the future might be like.

The fourth and final panel, titled "Beyond Today's Internet" was moderated by Stephen Segaller of WNET, the PBS station behind the Triumph of the Nerds series. He was joined by the four pioneers of the original ARAPnet, Vinton Cerf, now with MCI, Robert Kahn, now with the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, Leonard Kleinrock, of the UCLA Computer Science Department, and Lawrence Roberts, now of Packetcom

Along with the theme of the day's event, the forefathers of today's Internet focused solely on the future. Since they all have networking backgrounds, the first question was whether or not the network could keep up with client demands. The four panelists unanimously agreed that the capacity of the network would continue to expand at a rate greater than our immediate needs. They acknowledged the limits of the current IP naming system, and that IPv6 would expand the limit of addresses to near 10^38. Len Kleinrock had a problem with these imposed limits and Vint Cerf joked that 10^38 IP addresses would mean enough for "a web page for every molecule on earth." Len clarified his protest and stated that we should instead design variable length solutions to the problem, solutions that offer unlimited means. When asked about limits of physical devices like routers handling packet switching, they agreed that packet switching would probably be replaced by an unknown technology, and that physical capacities of networks would increase with the increased use of fiber. Len said instead of digital packets traveling through copper wire, in the future, it would just be pulses of light traveling along fiber. They all spoke of the proposed growth of the Internet, to surpass one billion people online in the next decade, and they mentioned something that was discussed briefly on an earlier panel; that someday soon, anything you buy over a certain price, say $25, would offer connectivity to the internet for a specific reason. Not a toaster that checks email, but each appliance would use the Internet for communication purposes.

This was another reason Len used to support unlimited IP addressing, due to the fact that billions of devices would need to access the internet. Questions asked by the moderator were mostly big picture, and the panel discussed them at that level. They talked about distant futures, when billions of people would be interacting with billions of devices, we would see drastic changes in Human-Computer interaction. They even alluded to the similarities between an enormous interconnected network of people and machines approaching the complexity of organic beings. The panel agreed with earlier panels that what were are witnessing is bigger than the industrial revolution. The knowledge explosion, as many called it, was going to fundamentally change how we do everything in the future.

Overall, it was an amazing experience. Among all the speakers and panelists, there were several messages that came across. The mood of everyone thinking about the future was one of optimism and opportunity. The interconnecting of everyone person on earth will trigger a knowledge revolution that will have deep, drastic changes on our lives and those around us. But if these future developments are met with some skepticism, and intelligence, it will undoubtedly be a good thing.

Matthew Haughey September 3, 1999

My photos from the event can be seen here

"

Lots of readers pointed us to this Microsoft.com page that says MS has stopped trying to make NT run on 64-bit Alphas and isn't even going to release any new 32-bit Alpha products. For more info on the subject, check this Netcape Netcenter article and the Ixnay WinNT on Alphastory we ran last Friday. Meanwhile, according to a short blurb in The Register, Intel has finally prototyped Merced in silicon - and it runs Linux fine but won't run Win64 at all. It looks like Microsoft simply can't deal with 64-bit architecture. Please try not to say "I told you so" too loudly to your MS-boosting coworkers, okay? ;-)

VJ writes "Intel just announced their new 8 way SMP chipset for use with PentiumIII-Xeons. A summary of features: 3X100 buses (2 for CPU's, and 1 for I/O. (The chipset appears to function to some degree as a crossbar switch, between the three buses) Cache coherencey features allow better utilization of L2 cache, other stuff too..) We'll have to wait and see, but this might be a relatively cheap way to get raw CPU for enterprise environments.. (Relative to Sun or HP or SGI)"

Chacham sent us some interesting Intel tidbits from Yahoo! News: First, they're cutting prices on P-II and P-IIIs between 26% and 41% (depending on model) tomorrow. Second, this October they plan to release a new line of 600 MHz+ Celerons using their recently-developed 0.18 micron manufacturing process, which isn't "new" news, but the referenced article goes into more detail than previous ones on the subject so it's worth a quick scan.

KEM writes "According to this news piece, Intel is giving up on the graphics market " They are going to still make integrated chipsets, but will no longer be making discrete graphics chips. Intel chalks it up not being able to keep up with the other chip makers, despite their purchase of Chips and Technologies in 1997, which was supposed to give them that edge.

nemoest writes "Intel is planning on slashing the price on Pentium III's by as much as 15% on Sunday. After which, they also plan to also cut the prices on the Xeon, Pentium II and III, and Celron on August 22nd. It looks like they want to try to run AMD even further into the ground with convenient price slashing just as they gear up to release the Athlon. You can read the complete story here on Cnet's news.com. "

Veck was the first to send us the word that Via Technology (lately of partnership with Intel, as well as being sued by them) has purchased the Cyrix x86 line from National Semiconductor. Despite the huge parity in size, Via Tech seems eager to take on Intel. Update: 06/30 04:10 by S : To clarify: Via Tech will be purchasing the Texas division of Cyrix which makes standalone PC processors fitting into standard sockets (7, 370, and the like). The Colorado division which makes integrated processors (MediaGX) will be absorbed into National Semiconductor to address the Information Appliance market. Interestingly it appears that Via will also offer integrated products, therefore possibly competing with National.

One of our readers sent us an interesting Forbes article detailing some of the "odd" movements that Intel has taken in reference to one of their partners, VIA Technologies. VIA makes a 133 mhz chipset, competition to Intel's 100 mhz chipset. You may remember VIA as the company that Intel accidently sued in mid-April, but withdrew the suit, saying it was a clerical mistake.

PaulB writes "Intel's new Easy PC standard has some prototype systems ready for it, which you can read about on Wired. Very cool looking stuff, finally no more iMac envy. " You can see the photos of the machines on intel's website but they do all have those stupid looking jumpsuit dudes in the way. Update: 06/08 08:45 by H :SurplusBaggage wrote in with the Phillips 42" monitors. Price tag: $15k.

Haven writes "News for all you overclockers out there! Get the facts from your peers at www.overclockers.com. You can now see which processors to purchase and how much luck other people are having. It includes everything from the PIII to the K6-2. "

Hasdi R Hashim wrote in to tell us that Intel has released theInstruction Set for the merced. You'll enjoy it if you're the sort that gets off on this stuff anyway.. "

Baboshka writes "Check out what Intel has to say about Linux in the future and VA Research in the now in this informative article. Includes a short interview with Brian Biles, VP of VA. "

Baboshka writes "Check out what Intel has to say about Linux in the future and VA Research in the now in this informative article. Includes a short interview with Brian Biles, VP of VA. "

Clive Turvey has continued his investigation into KNI, and has documented the instructions he has found so far. MMX coders will be happy to see that KNI contains a 1-cycle shuffle instruction, like Altivec does, but unlike MMX. As expected it has some instructions specifically for 3D (1/x and 1/sqrt(x)). Update: 02/24 12:11 by S : As reader Christopher Thomas points out, Intel has released a manual that includes a functional description of KNI. But I can't find any instruction timings in it. It weighs a hefty 5.5Mb.

mrlament wishes to know about the following: "I've been a long time Linux user, but I keep finding myself having to switch over to my Windows box in order to view videos. I've tried xanim, and have yet had it properly handle a single video, aside from the real player, I cannot seem to find a single decent player for MOVs, AVIs and MPGs. Does anyone know of any, or are there just not any out there?" I posted this up here because I get a lot of this from people outside of Ask Slashdot, so I figure there are people out there that want this information. Hit the link for more. In all honesty, I don't think Linux is going to get very far beyond Indeo Video 3.2 support since IV4, IV5 and the I263 codecs are VERY proprietary and (so I've heard) it costs a lot of money just to become a developer. I would love support for AVIs under more than just Windows, but it's been a couple of years since IV4 was released and I just haven't seen support for it materialize anywhere else (if I'm wrong, someone PLEASE correct me!).

I'm surprised that there ISN'T more visible QuickTime support, but that's Apple's bailiwick. Intel and Apple have also begun to crosslicense technology as Apple now gets Intel Video 4.4 support for QuickTime. Of course as far as I can tell, QuickTime is still only available for Macs, 95/98 and NT.

MPG video files are more crossplatform than any of the others. I expect this format is supported under more platforms than any other, however I don't have any information on a LINUX player. If someone has a helpful link, please post it.

As an aside, MainConcept has one of the best movie players I have seen and supports a wide range of formats. It's been the mainstay viewer under OS/2 for a while, and it looks like they've taken an interest in Linux as they are attempting to port their Video Editor over.

Update: 02/13 01:16 by C : I've started a discussion, and someone has already answered my question regarding IV4 and IV5 on Linux. It appears that the only people who can offer support on these codecs is Intel themselves. With their support of Linux in recent times, who knows, this might actually happen. A cordial letter writing campaign might be in order to see if we can get them to port these codecs sooner rather than later?

The guy in the next cubicle writes "Looks like Intel has an official slogan for the Pentium III processor: "This Way In." You can make up your own joke. " I'll muffle my own jokes. It's just too easy.

Zebulun writes "the New York Times reported today that Silicon Graphics Corp will sell its majority stake in MIPS Technologies Inc. which produces the RS5k and RS10k processors powering SGIs high-end workstations. This comes not long after SGI announced and began selling intel PII based "VisualStations". " Andrey gave us the link to this Associated Press report about it, commenting "What a sad day it is..."

jht writes "Intel announced new Celerons (a 366 and 400 model) this morning - still a 66 MHz bus, but now they offer a low-cost chipset (the 440ZX-66 AGPSet) that allows you to use the new Socket 370 form factor - finally, good old baby-AT size motherboards can reappear! Welcome back, I missed you.The reference board they show is nice and small. I wonder just how overclockable these might turn out to be, and how long before Intel really starts to cannibalize the Pentium II cash cow with Celerons. "

jht writes "Intel announced new Celerons (a 366 and 400 model) this morning - still a 66 MHz bus, but now they offer a low-cost chipset (the 440ZX-66 AGPSet) that allows you to use the new Socket 370 form factor - finally, good old baby-AT size motherboards can reappear! Welcome back, I missed you.The reference board they show is nice and small. I wonder just how overclockable these might turn out to be, and how long before Intel really starts to cannibalize the Pentium II cash cow with Celerons. "

Eitan Shefer writes " I have a nice scoop. hehe.. so far no news source picked this one up.. back in the old days, of the pre-Jobs-intrim-headed Apple, Apple invested in a new CPU company called Exponential, which claimed to have made very fast Power-pc based CPU (up to 500mhz At 0.6 micron, which is amazing, if true.). Apple, under Jobs decided not to use Exponential's chips, a decision which pretty much killed exponential since very few potential clients for PPC desktop CPUs existed at that time (or still do). Exponential also wrote a few patents that were rather interesting to other CPU makers (X86 emulation in 64bit architecture, for example, which Intel would be interested in.). Exponential died, and, in the end the patents were bought by S3. The same S3 today has announced that they have entered into a 10-year cross license deal with Intel, giving Intel (and S3) access to each other's patents. Click below to read the press release. " S3 Announces 10-Year Cross Licensing Agreement With Intel Intel to Purchase Warrants for S3 Shares S3 to be an Intel AGP 4X Validation Partner SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 17, 1998--S3 Inc. (Nasdaq:SIII - news) today announced a long-term agreement with Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news) which includes a 10-year cross-license agreement for all S3 and Intel patents for development of certain semiconductor products, a bus license for current and future Intel general purpose processors, and the selection of S3 as an Intel AGP 4X validation partner.

John Reynolds writes "Finally! The powers that be have decided to open up the I2O spec! Check out this article" This is great news. I2O was a big nasty thorn for a long time.

Mark Nielsen sent us a wonderful little tidbit about Intel and the Simpsons. Apparently during the season opener of the X-Files a new PII commerical will be debuting spotlighting Homer having his brain replaced with a PII. Geez, I dunno-if his head is anything like my laptop, he's just gonna melt.

ockman@penguincomputing.com writes "It looks like IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Compaq have decided to get back in the game of adding real value. They have a PCI spec. [Ed's note - will have] that's six times faster than the current one. This was created without the support of Intel, as what these companies call "a grass-roots type of backlash" Sounds like good news - either Intel supports the superior technology and competes with Mylex and the gang, or loses market share. Besides, it looks as if Intel will support it anyway. More MHz never hurt anybody (no pun intended).

A virtual flood of people wrote in about the Microsoft-Intel incident with Tsk being the first in the gate, by a nose. A new report has come out that Microsoft allegedly told Intel to stay out of the Internet software business. This may come in the Sept 23 trial, but it that trial is focusing more on the browser wars, and marketing of IE. The investigators are particularly interested in a 1995 meeting between top execs from both companies, including both Grove and Gates. In it, Gates is supposed to have talked about how Intel's multimedia efforts and Internet software development were counter to what Microsoft's plan was, and made vague statements about supporting Intel rivals. Whew-now there's a way to start my day.

As was expected, Intel is experiencing, some, ah, "heat regulation" issues with the new Xeon chip, as reported here. The problem is showing in quad-proc servers, and has been causing performance "glitches".
On the opposite end of the scale, Intel has said that they are experiencing "supply shortages" for their low-end chips. Analysts are saying it's because Intel isn't recognizing the changing consumer markets, but Intel claims that it is because of a change in the manufacturing process.

Well, mega-maker Intel has announced price cuts of up to 31% on basically all their chips-Celeron, Xeon (Argon anyone?) and the PII.

While everyone else is moving ahead at breakneck speed to integrate the new copper technology Intel has declared that they will be taking a more conservative stance, not looking towards using it until 2001-2. They remain convinced that they can boost the chip speed by using conventional aluminum.

Deepak Saxena wrote in to send us This Story where you can read about Robert Glasser (the CEO of RealNetworks) testifying against Microsoft in front of a Senate Panel. Talks about how Microsoft's Media Player breaks RealPlayer. It's quite interesting.

According to EETimes, Intel will integrate its new 3D graphics chip i740 into Whitney, its Mendocino chipset, following a path pioneered by Cyrix in its MediaGX processors. Unlike the Cyrix solution, OEMs have the option to use a separate memory or system memory to store the frame-buffer. It will be interesting to see by what percentage system speed differs. Since other chipset vendors (SIS, VIA) are on the same attack vector, the days of low end graphics card vendors may be numbered. Let's hope that the integrated graphics vendors will not be so NDA happy that Xfree/fbcon become limited to a few systems: these moves spell cheaper systems at the cost of lower choice.

Since Intel has unveiled Xeon, the debate has begun over whether this will give the bucket o' flavors known as Unix a good inroad into Intel machines at a more massive level. Whaddya think- will this be the typical Wintel situation, or will this be a bigger change?

The black monolith of cip manufacture, Intel has been told by an administrative law judge that they have until July 13 to respond to the anti-trust accusations before them. Could we have a TIS in the making?

Intel has released the 400MHz Xeon in 512KB and 1MB versions. The chip is Intel's ploy for the high end of the market. The chipset behind the new chip is the 450NX chipset, which allows for more than 4GB of RAM and more than two-way machines to be built. But it's not cheap - US$1124 for the 512KB version, and US$2836 for the 1MB version. The 2MB version isn't yet available due to a flaw in the chipset.

Intel will soon begin making price cuts more frequently. The chip giant will begin to expand its grasp in the low-end and high-end markets, and, as a result, will need to phase out chips. Examples of the expansion include the 450MHz Xeon that, next month, will cost US$3690, in quantities of 1000, and the mobile Pentium II 266 will drop to US$160 in September. Hmm, maybe I *can* hold off on that laptop a little while longer...

Intel who have been stung recently by the FTC in an anti-trust investigation and by a suit from Intergraph have countersued. They are arguing that Intergraph is actually the one who is infringing on patents, as well as that the cross-licensing deal gives them immunity from Intergraph's lawsuit.

Intel, who have been having a large number of problems lately, finally announced good news. Katmai, the 500 mhz chip, will be released 1Q 1999, rather 2Q. What this will also mean is that prices/quantities of fast PII will start falling faster.

Intel is having a bad month. C't now reports over 500 re-labeled Pentium II chips have been found, including in channels Intel claimed secure. More worrying is that some remarked chips may be undetectable until the overclocked chip is damaged. More info is available here.. In particular the class action suit in Taiwan is worth reading. The announcement that Merced will be late caused Technology stocks to tumble yesterday. And today, news.com reports that the top FTC litigator is recommending that Intel be sued for alleged antitrust violations.

(Read more below)

Meanwhile, the competition is heating up. Newcomer Rise has demonstrated its new mP6 x86 processor, designed (like Centaur's) for the notebook market.

Interestingly, Centaur is abandonning its unipipe solution for its second generation Winchips, using 2 6-stage pipelines at up to 300Mhz. A third 12-stage pipe line architecture is planned, which will running at frequencies between 400 and 600Mhz, should improve performance by 80%. Centaur is also jumping onto the integration bandwagon, proposing its Winchip 2+NB which reduces board area (and costs) by combining the C6 core and a north-bridge on the same die.

AMD has released its K6-2, at a higher price, and with little OEM interest. However this chip is a screamer, profiting from being the first to use the new 100Mhz front side bus, and the new 3DNow! instructions. Centaur, Cyrix, and IBM also plan to deliver these features in their upcoming processors.

Finally, IBM has released a PR333 version of the Cyrix-designed 6x86 MX, which apparently partially gains its speed from a new type of chip-package. This comes as IBM revealed that it expects its Slot1 solution to be developed by Cyrix.

RudeDude sent us this link to an Intel Press Release where you can read that Intel has completed the purchase of DECs Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Called into action by the possibility of the DOJ and the states working on an anti-trust action together, tech giants ranging from Dell, HP and Intel (surprise!) have gotten together to encourage the government not to block the release of Windows 98.

Chip monotlith Intel is looking at a potential ruckus with the Federal Trade Commision. The FTC is thinking about going after Intel, saying that "they may be charged with holding back technology from the customers". Sounds good to me- we all want more tech.