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Sean Kelly asks: "Like a lot of other people, I went out and bought myself a nice 60GB IBM DeskStar 75GXP (ATA100, 7200rpm) hard drive to put in my sparkling new computer. Boy was that a mistake! A few months after I got the drive, it failed with horrific grinding and clicking noises, plus random data loss. So I RMA'd the first one and got a 'SERVICEABLE USED PART' replacement from IBM, which died of the same death after another few months. Not getting the hint, I RMA'd that one. Last week, I got the refab. drive back from IBM and it has already died, in less than a week! This time I did some site searching and found many people are having problems with this drive. Sites such as The Inquirer, Hexus, Tech Report, Hardware One, Sysopt, and even this PCWorld have dedicated articles, forums and user reviews to these failing and defective drives. From what I can understand, IBM is not publicly acknowledging that they screwed up here. How many other people out there have had their 75GXP (or 60GXP) drives fail? What size were they? What part number? What did IBM do about it? It is my opinion that IBM should do something about this, since I've seen an unnaturally high number of complaints about this drive now that I started looking for customer feedback. Also, here is a letter I sent to IBM explaining my frustration with them. It has more information in it."

Jeff writes: "CNN is reporting 'In a dramatic move, the new judge in the Microsoft case Friday ordered the government and the software maker into five weeks of intensive settlement talks, until Nov. 2.'" Other MS submissions coming in today: USAToday discovers the new upgrade scheme, designed to milk every last cent out of those who've locked themselves into Windows; tech-report.com goes a bit more in depth on the same subject; ZDNet hoists the black flag; MS discusses its plans to control how you compute (by the way, the license agreement for Windows Media Player now allows Microsoft to disable any software on your computer - you do read those license agreements, don't you?); Gates got $666,000 last year but won't have to apply for welfare just yet.

A number of people wrote in with the news that Intel released the 2 Ghz chip. The Tech-Report article points out a couple interesting meta-ideas - this is Intel's chance to retake the performance crown from AMD, as well as being one of those round numbers that makes people feel warm and fuzzy. I'm sure there's going to be gobs of benchmarks today - post 'em in the comments as you find 'em.

There's a piece by Scott Wasson regarding the claims of Apple, of late, and his...feelings on it. It's a pretty ranty piece, as he says in the beginning, but it's a good discussion starting piece - even tho' I disagree with him to a degree.

DavoKid writes: "Intel rolls out the .13 micron Pentium III processor based on the Tualatin core at 1.2GHz. This chip really shines and overclocks to 1.47GHz. The benchmarks are fairly impressive too! Reviews at: HotHardware, Anandtech, and Tech Report." Also given plenty of attention is Intel's new D815EEA2 motherboard, since that appears to be about the only choice for the new chip. The consensus seems to be that this chip is at least intended to be "the new Celeron," but marketed also as a power-frugal chip to impress server-farms with electrical savings.

b0ris writes "This review of the NVIDIA GeForce3 at The Tech Report does a nice job explaining how the GF3 chip can create advanced graphics effects in real time. The author raises the prospect of having real-time Final Fantasy or Shrek-style animation on the desktop in a consumer graphics card. The examples from the GF3 he uses to back it up are almost convincing, even if it isn't quite there yet. Will render farms go the way of the dodo?" Well, I'm all for dreaming, but its gonna be a few years before the GeForce8 can do renderman in real time, but when we get there, Final Fantasy 21 is gonna rule.

b0ris writes "This review of the NVIDIA GeForce3 at The Tech Report does a nice job explaining how the GF3 chip can create advanced graphics effects in real time. The author raises the prospect of having real-time Final Fantasy or Shrek-style animation on the desktop in a consumer graphics card. The examples from the GF3 he uses to back it up are almost convincing, even if it isn't quite there yet. Will render farms go the way of the dodo?" Well, I'm all for dreaming, but its gonna be a few years before the GeForce8 can do renderman in real time, but when we get there, Final Fantasy 21 is gonna rule.

A reader writes "The Tech Report has an article up discussing a new hardware site. What makes this one special? Well, to paraphrase Die Hard, Ziff-Davis has the "How to build a hardware site" playbook, and they're running it step by step. According to sources cited in the article, this is an ominous development for the future of objective hardware reviews online."

A reader writes "The Tech Report has an article up discussing a new hardware site. What makes this one special? Well, to paraphrase Die Hard, Ziff-Davis has the "How to build a hardware site" playbook, and they're running it step by step. According to sources cited in the article, this is an ominous development for the future of objective hardware reviews online."

The Tech-Report is currently running a feature that compares two of the leading PDA keyboards - the Targus Stowaway and the Landware GoType. I've seen a number of these used before, but haven't gotten one yet - anyone else found one that they really like?

An anonymous reader writes "The Tech Report has an article on Crusoe-powered devices. Plenty of pictures, with details on offerings from Casio, NEC and Sony, among others. These things are really tiny and the batteries last forever! I want one." The fiva is especially sharp. Extremely small: could be very useful.

An anonymous reader writes "The Tech Report has an article on Crusoe-powered devices. Plenty of pictures, with details on offerings from Casio, NEC and Sony, among others. These things are really tiny and the batteries last forever! I want one." The fiva is especially sharp. Extremely small: could be very useful.

An unnamed correspondent writes: "The Tech Report has posted a review of AMD's 760 chipset. This is the one that includes a 133 MHz DDR bus, with support for 133 MHz DDR (a.k.a. PC2100) SDRAM. Benchmarks were done using a 1.2 GHz Athlon, and include everything from memory bandwidth tests to a variety of Quake III scores; they even attempted Linux tests, but Linux and the 760 wouldn't play nice." For another point of view, Fr0child writes "Today is the day that AMD officially announces their DDR SDRAM supporting chipset, the AMD 760. They promise "Increasing Memory Data Rate by Up to 100 Percent," which is quite promising to say the least. Of course, who would sit back and believe what a manufacturer says without verification? Anandtech has taken an in depth look at all the performance and features of the AMD 760. Looks like the combination of DDR + Athlon easily topples the RDRAM + Intel platforms out there."

And on the other, other hand, romeomustdie writes: "According to this [Sharky Extreme] piece, AMD is finally debuting the 760 DDR capable chipset, which is, for the most part, an evolutionary step up from the 750 chipset which has been out for the past year. Boasting a faster system bus, support for DDR memory, and a brand new South Bridge, AMD has set themselves up to not only surpass their first-generation offering, but also the current performance Athlon chipset, VIA's KT133. DDR is finally here to stay."

An unnamed correspondent writes: "The Tech Report has posted a review of AMD's 760 chipset. This is the one that includes a 133 MHz DDR bus, with support for 133 MHz DDR (a.k.a. PC2100) SDRAM. Benchmarks were done using a 1.2 GHz Athlon, and include everything from memory bandwidth tests to a variety of Quake III scores; they even attempted Linux tests, but Linux and the 760 wouldn't play nice." For another point of view, Fr0child writes "Today is the day that AMD officially announces their DDR SDRAM supporting chipset, the AMD 760. They promise "Increasing Memory Data Rate by Up to 100 Percent," which is quite promising to say the least. Of course, who would sit back and believe what a manufacturer says without verification? Anandtech has taken an in depth look at all the performance and features of the AMD 760. Looks like the combination of DDR + Athlon easily topples the RDRAM + Intel platforms out there."

And on the other, other hand, romeomustdie writes: "According to this [Sharky Extreme] piece, AMD is finally debuting the 760 DDR capable chipset, which is, for the most part, an evolutionary step up from the 750 chipset which has been out for the past year. Boasting a faster system bus, support for DDR memory, and a brand new South Bridge, AMD has set themselves up to not only surpass their first-generation offering, but also the current performance Athlon chipset, VIA's KT133. DDR is finally here to stay."

gnewt writes "The guys at The Tech Report have put together a pretty comprehensive review of 3dfx's V5 5500 AGP. There's a comparison against several NVIDIA products, including the GeForce2, on image quality, FSAA, performance, and mip mapping. Overall, a nice introduction to modern 3D accelerators."

gnewt writes "The guys at The Tech Report have put together a pretty comprehensive review of 3dfx's V5 5500 AGP. There's a comparison against several NVIDIA products, including the GeForce2, on image quality, FSAA, performance, and mip mapping. Overall, a nice introduction to modern 3D accelerators."

Modular writes " This press release Toshiba Signs Patent License Agreement With Rambus For SDRAM & DDR SDRAM Memory and Controllers surprised me. I didn't know that Rambus held patents for SDRAM and DDR SDRAM. It seems like they hold cards on both sides of the SDRAM vs RDRAM issue. Toshiba already had an agreement to produce RDRAM. Did they sign this to strengthen Rambus claims to SDRAM technology? Are these patents pending and contested by other memory manufacturers?" Check out the tech report for an analysis of this - it doesn't look good, I fear.

In an attempt to amplify, revisit, correct or update some recent Slashdot stories, the following tidbits have been hand-trimmed for your reading pleasure. I hope you like them. (Read more.)

Library of Congress will have online items o'plenty. franimal wrote in reaction to the report that the Library of Congress does not plan to digitize its collection. "Even though reading online may be 'mindless,' 'isolating,' 'lonely' and 'arrogant' the Library of Congress plans to have 5 million 'items' posted by the end of the year."

Twice as close to the middle of nowhere. HerringFlavoredFowl pointed out that "Ikonos 1 has just raised the bar on Area 51 images. As we all remember, terraserver just released a set of two meter images taken in 1998. Space Imaging snapped this set on April 4th, 2000. The Federation of American Scientists [has posted] a wonderful side by side interpretation of these images. Thank you John Pike for clueing me in on the FAS update. Space.com also has some color images and an the steps Mr. Pike went through to obtain these images. "

One lump or two? Or three? Scott Marks and hordes of fellow travelers let us know that "The US DOJ U.S. v. Microsoft web site has all the gory legal details on the Proposed Final Judgment as well as a number of other interesting tidbits. Not the least is the ability to comment on the trial directly: 'If you would like to send the Antitrust Division your comments on this case, please direct your correspondence to Microsoft.atr@usdoj.gov .'"

What kind of power is that? After the latest brouhaha both on Slashdot and in the rest of the world about the link between violence and video games, Jer Davis wrote: "The Tech Report has an article up written by Andy Brown dissecting some of the psychological studies that have been released recently regarding correlations between real-life violence and violent video games. ... This is a very important issue, and Andy does an excellent job at dissecting the very suspect results these studies have claimed."

And speaking of violence ... Deadli contributed the news that the secretary of education opposes mechanical profiling programs according to this Washington Post article. Perhaps he's been reading the reaction to Jon Katz' article on WAVE.

Once in a while, some good news slips through. In this case, it's from TheGreek, who wrote, "Jason Haas is out of the hospital and well on his way to recovering." Congratulations, Jason.

The Damage Report is currently featuring a review of the new Matrox card. I've been playing with the GeForce 256 lately - very, very pretty stuff, but I'd be interested to see how this compared.

The Tech Report is running an article concerning Athlon overclocking. With the 1Ghz+ chips coming down the line apparently soon, will things need to change? Or will it be just a documentation change? The other change is the issue of moving to on-die L2 cache - how will that affect things?