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Now for an alternate perspective... http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36 443

One such example was when Virgin attempted to get Internet humour website B3ta.com to come up with something for their "say yes" campaign. Virgin got rather offended in fact over what was being produced and pulled out. It did however generate a storm of publicity (The Inq. wasn't the only site to report this cock-up), so it was successful in some respects.

A Blu-ray writer that can also write to all other optical disks (apart from HD-DVD of course) is coming in cheaper than the first gen cd *players* did. Give them a year or so and they will be affordable enough to be included in all OEM pcs.

It's the one where Microsoft decided they will decide when and where and on what devices to allow you to play your media.

Any bright minds out there that willingly use these things lost control of all of their personal media.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/play er/faq/drm.mspx

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34 523 is in plain engrish.

I certainly hope you aren't running either Vista or WMP11.

All this is a big yawn. Two important metrics: Frame rates and http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/ / http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/ .

Also, you want to save big on power, try making mass storage solid state or holographic. Who cares about faster CPUs at the moment when memory needs to get faster and less latent and less reliant on pipelining and more geared towards faster random access and throughput along with faster mass storage without moving parts.

AMD: Losing in SPEC after having a huge lead and having the superior HyperTransport architecture (direct descendant of the EV7 bus from Alpha's glue-less SMP).

AMD is now a partner with WildTangent, what a joke. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35 085

Also, AMD bought ATI and is seriously de-focused - I'm deeply saddened that Intel wont be getting the same level of competition as before because it seems to me AMD/ATI are not headed in the right direction.

PS: Ever notice Intel "VIIV" is VI IV or 6 4 in roman numerals? Lol, right.

I'm no Intel shill, but these new Conroe/Woodcrest CPUs, well, try them out. You'll see.

Verisign abuses their monopoly and shouldn't be allowed to keep it. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=11 569

I wonder what is next, after the last renewal they pulled the DNS wild card thing... so what is next?

Verisign abuses their monopoly and shouldn't be allowed to keep it. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=11 569

Agreed. Even some enjoyable articles like Everywhere Girl and now Slashdot Subculture are deleted.

I was just passing by when I thought of reminding people here that Linux was, is, and always will be a failure.

See how the ancient about box on this web page looks more modern than what you'd get from a Linux GUI even today.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36 120

Almost ALL the reviews have missed one crucial thing: WinXP sucks at NUMA and AMD uses NUMA (vs Intels SMP) memory architecture. When this is taken into consideration (i.e., VISTA), the results tip in AMD's favor. Try reading Charlie Demerjian's article in the INQ: http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36087

---John

Last week, in More IBM Filings and a Nice Memento for Us to Share, PJ was also proud to note that the Letter to SCO that Groklaw wrote back in 2003 was actually submitted as evidence by IBM now, to show that "SCO rebuffed requests by the open source community for evidence of the alleged infringement, which would have permitted a potential work-around."

And rightfully proud, of course. More power to PJ!

OpenMoko is coming out with an open source phone in the next month or so. Good stuff. Read up on it a bit and subscribe to the mailing list. As someone who used to develop software for small devices, this is like a dream come true.

Oh, and I assume you're talking about the TimeLine law suit? Actually that came about because TimeLine cancelled Microsoft's licensing agreement, which gave MS license to the patents. Unless you mean another law suit then please, stop trying to paint SQL Server as containing some sort of patent theft and Oracle as squeaky clean.

Oh, and I assume you're talking about the TimeLine law suit? Actually that came about because TimeLine cancelled Microsoft's licensing agreement, which gave MS license to the patents. Unless you mean another law suit then please, stop trying to paint SQL Server as containing some sort of patent theft and Oracle as squeaky clean.

Oh, and I assume you're talking about the TimeLine law suit? Actually that came about because TimeLine cancelled Microsoft's licensing agreement, which gave MS license to the patents. Unless you mean another law suit then please, stop trying to paint SQL Server as containing some sort of patent theft and Oracle as squeaky clean.

Oh, and I assume you're talking about the TimeLine law suit? Actually that came about because TimeLine cancelled Microsoft's licensing agreement, which gave MS license to the patents. Unless you mean another law suit then please, stop trying to paint SQL Server as containing some sort of patent theft and Oracle as squeaky clean.

Those situations would fall under the jurisdiction of law enforcement, not Microsoft.

Once Billy Boy is President, they will be one and the same....

It is just a vertex shading pipeline and a very simplified pixel shading pipeline. Sony expected people to do all their pixel effects on the Cell, but that isn't working out too well which is why people are noticing fullscreen effects looking worse on PS3 versions of games like NFS:Carbon.

All you have noticed is that a highly optimized renderer isn't in service on day one, big surprise. As far as pixel shaders and vertex shaders go, you have got your FUD garbled. The RSX has on-board pixel shaders, and vertex shading is done by the Cells' SPE units. This approach pipelines well and looks perfectly elegant to me.

As I understand it, the Unreal engine is optimized for the Cell+RSX combo and Sony will sublicense it to any PS3 developer. I do not think we have seen a PS3 game yet that uses the Unreal engine, please correct me if I'm wrong.

The difference between the cost of the parts of an Xbox 360 and a low end PS3 is $482.55. Even with manufacturing costs and other costs getting the system to the store, in order for Microsoft to lose as much money per console as Sony they would have to price an Xbox 360 at $99.

Microsoft makes over 10 billion dollars a year in profit. They can afford to lose money in the short term for long term profits. Video on demand is going to be huge. Once they get a large install base, they can start providing video download services for other electronic manufacturers. You could buy a Toshiba DVD player which has video on demand provided by Microsoft. Microsoft and Toshiba would each make a few pennies for each download that the customer makes. There will be competitors, but that's business. While Sony has Blu Ray as its huge potential market, Microsoft has video on demand.

If Microsoft wanted to really screw Sony, they could have a one day sale with the Xbox 360 premium and a copy of Gear of War for $299. If they feel like it, throw in a year of Xbox Live Gold and a copy of Project Gotham Racing 3. Or a Core system with a memory card and a copy of Project Gotham Racing for $199. Nov 16 would be a great date. Right between the PS3 and Wii launch. It would cost Microsoft money, but it would steal thunder from their competitors. Of course, it's too late now.

It will be interesting to see whether the PS3 is worth $499 for the low end model. I honestly believe that people will buy the Wii regardless of what it costs or what the other console makers do. You're either a Wii fan or your not.

CSIRO has a US patent on technology for wireless networks and the vendors currently pay it a licence for its use.

The organisation said it obtained the wireless LAN patent in 1996, and it's a standard feature of notebook computers and other devices.

Its chief executive, Geoff Garrett, said that CSIRO offered licences on "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms" to the major vendors when they started selling devices which used the technology.

IANAL, but if the vendors currently already pay the CSIRO a license for its use, wouldn't this imply two things?
1) From the TLJ article, Buffalo was not paying a license and were therefore a suit was raised against them in Feb 2005; but
2) That Dell and Intel are paying the license and are trying to invalidate it so that they don't have to - and therefore raised the suit in May 2005 to that purpose - to which CSIRO have now countersued

'We've been working on this for years,' a spokesman burbled, 'honestly, we'd like to thank EDS, Lockheed, Siemens, Microsoft and BT who've been laying down the groundwork for this cockup for years now.'

To what do they owe their success?

'Pacing, it's all about pacing. We started small with screw-ups in the Magistrates system, Air Traffic Control and the Child Support Agency, then we could take on more ambitious schemes.

'Frankly we never thought we'd top our work on the Passport network or the Department of Work and Pensions - I mean it's hard to beat ruining people's holidays or taking away their benefits. But somehow, we managed; personally I think it was getting a guy who failed his computing courses to run the project that sealed the win. We're thrilled, no one anywhere can boast of a track record like this, it's good to see Britain taking the lead in this exciting new field of technology.'

So will this mark the culmination of British government IT failures?

'Not for a minute!' the spokesman laughed, 'you ain't seen anything yet. Wait until we get to work on ID cards - we think we've got the perfect combination, a PM who couldn't spell Internet if he tried, a government department described by its own head as 'unfit for purpose', snakeoil biometric technology, a ludicrous budget, no specification and best of all, the guy who nearly bankrupted Sainsbury's with their IT system! Stay tuned!'

The Inquirer is running a report http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35 685 in which it is claimed that the leader of the project failed his computer science exams at university. What is really funny is that it is his mother who let this cat out of the bag.

Choice quote: "The retired teacher, who hasn't spoken to her son for ten years after a family row, said yesterday: 'I can't believe that my son is running the IT modernisation programme for the whole of the NHS."

(You might wonder why she is attacking her own son: she did so in protest at the closure, or threatened closure, of a local health facility, the cost of which is dwarfed by the amount that has sunk into the black hole that this project appears to have become.)

Which is why RIAA has gone for a lot of soft targets http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35 669

Right, because ATM's, Point of Sale machines, electronic billboards, fight schedule displays and many other business related machines running on MS software has such a proven track record. There certainly aren't any examples around of them failing.

Are you suggesting that a Microsoft ATM could fail? That's unpossible!

Couldn't have ANYTHING to do with the fact that you have a POS video card, could it?

Nvidia pulled a fast one on you. The 7100 GS series is a rebranding of the old 6200 TC series, and thus has pathetic performance. The old 6200 does not have advanced compression technology (unlike every other chip available today), which means with a pathetic 64-bit bus it runs like a dog.

I've noticed with Source that the lower your framerate, and the less on-card memory, the more likely you are to encounter sound stuttering (due to texture loads and the like). With the extra load TurboCache is putting on your memory subsystem, I wouldn't be surprised at all if that is the source of the problem.

Try running it in DirectX 7 mode and see if that doesn't help things. But my best suggestion would be to get a real video card (IE, no turbo cache, at least a 128-bit bus, and more than two ROPs). You can pick up a card about 4 times as powerful as your 7100 for under $100 - the 7600 GS.

Some other questions:

Your amount of ram makes me think you have a Socket 754 system. Do you have 3x512MB ram sticks? That hurts performance.

Also, if you have a Socket 754 system, do realize that memory bandwidth is precious on such systems, and is being eaten up by your 7100 card. You can't expect your soundcard to stream audio without stuttering if the video card is sapping your limited memory bandwidth.

The headline at inquirer reads "Adobe Hands Mozarella Foundation Flash Code"

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35 584

This is the article I was referencing..

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=35348

TSMC does chip fabrication. I was talking about the PCB design.

Bruce

the Vole is a term coined by The Inquirer to refer to Microsoft. They think they're very clever, they frequently come up with similar witticisms and like to pat themselves on the back for them.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6148098.html/

Microsoft will be moving to a 65nm process in the first quarter of 2007. This should result in a significant reduction in the heat and power consumption. It is the main reason I'm not buying one yet. Whether Microsoft will reduce the price of the console when the make the change is up in the air, but it will almost certainly cut the price at some time.

AMD is converting Fab 30 in Dresden from 90um and 200mm wafers to Fab 38, with 65nm and 300mm wafers. This should come on line in 2007. Longer term, AMD is building a new fab in upstate New York for 32nm features on 300mm wafers. That should come on line in 2010.

Meanwhile, AMD's main fab, Fab 36 in Dresden, is starting to produce 65nm features on 200mm wafers. AMD is also outsourcing some production to a 65nm fab in Singapore.

Down at the user level, this means that first shipments of AMD CPUs made with 65nm technology should appear in December of 2006. Coming soon to Dell Dimension desktops.

Ok, you obviously work for "Big Media". Or if not, you should.
I posted the link: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34 523 in response to your other attack on my, and anyone else who is suspicious of DRM's, intelligence.
The basic mechanism "if media is DRM'd, it will only play back if you have the DRM subsystem installed on your computer" is not in contention here, not that it's actually unbreakable or anything.

Note: the logic you used to deconstruct my post is impressive; I was not even close to expressing myself as clearly as I should have. The problem is I'm just not sure I have the ability to transfer the spirit of my thoughts into dialogue as well as would be necessary to avoid errors in syntax and meaning to a more than usually discerning reader.
This is pretty sad considering my past education and work experience; I will quit the debate now, defeated by a TKO.

It's not FUD.
Check this link: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34 523
it's pretty widely known. I'm sorry if I implied that Media Center did this in the past...
I also have media Center, for about a year.

DAAMIT engineers will be looking to shift to 65 nanometre if not even to 45 nanometre to make such a complex chip as a CPU/GPU possible.

Doesn't sound like a messed up link. According to this dozens of users were kicked off the system. How does a messed up link cause them to login as 'presenters'?

Microsoft finally called an online briefing .. Fifteen minutes into the much-anticipated briefing, dozens of the security companies were kicked off line and could not connect again

"There were problems with the audio and video. We could not get back on."

A Microsoft spokesman explained the crash was due to "technical problems" and an extra briefing would be set for Monday

'Alex Eckelberry .. said .. participants signed on as presenters. "Which, if you've ever used Live Meeting, is an invitation to chaos".'

Did the users actually sign on as 'presenters' and how would this crash Live Meeting?

People who play PC games, obviously, of which there are many more than use iMacs. And how many is that?

Well, consider: there was talk of Intel buying nVidia for around $10 billion. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33 298

Not being able to future-proof the video card isn't as much a knock against the iMac as it having a marginal, economy-quality GPU right out of the box, Apple being too cheap (and apparently too hungry for 40% margins) to equip it with better. The iMac's fine in many respects, but in this one very ho-hum.

This policy emphasises that the United States is committed to peaceful uses of space by all nations and that space systems enjoy the right of free passage.

Protection of space assets does not imply some sort of forceful action.

The article at Inq. stats that an old IE bug is not fixed in IE7. The vulnerability can be exploited to disclose potentially sensitive information. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35 210

The Yahoo chatroom was called Islam 10.

It's the Windows ATMs we use. They're to blame for this.

Microsoft is actually releasing DirectX 9.L, which will have features of DirectX 10 and also allow DX10 games under Windows XP.

Seems not to be the case

Done. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35 103.

Can we start the large public outcry now please?

I wish that AMD had access to the Intel Fab tech. Just how fast and low power would their chips be if they where 65nm right now like Intel's?

If AMD had access to Intel's Fab tech it would do them no good. AMD has much more advanced fab technology which allows them to design better cpus on 90nm. Intel designs their cpus with what Fab tech they have and AMD designs their cpus with what Fab tech they have. AMD's 65nm cpus will designed to use even more Fab techniques than their 90nm ones. So even if AMD had access to Intel's crap fab tech, they would have to design a cpu from scratch to fit Intel's fabs. Wrong wish. Wish that Intel will stop their lying marketing (Intel 64?!?! sorry but AMD came up with the 64-bit extensions. Credit due where credit is due please. It is AMD64 thank you. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34 722) and stop using anti-competition business practices instead. AMD does not need Intel trash technology.

"The software is developed by Crawley-based Formjet PLC, which includes the anti-virus developer Panda Software and Ability Software, maker of the Ability office suite."

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34 800

Am I crazy, or maybe should daddy have told junior to get off that god damn video game system?

Here are some new pictures of AMD's 65nm quad core processors.

Someone within HP is acting against Mark Hurd, otherwise documents demonstrating his direct culpability would not have surfaced. It appears to me that this information seals Hurd's fate... he will probably lose his job, face criminal charges, and be the target of a class action lawsuit from the reporters from whom he fraudulently obtained phone records.

The question is who is leaking and why.

HP is now the synthesis of Compaq and DEC, and there probably isn't an HP employee who doesn't know of a terminated coworker. Perhaps it is possible that someone with a grudge over a past termination decided to eliminate Hurd.

But then again, the terminations aren't over. Perhaps someone in the crosshairs decided to halt the process by taking out the CEO.

Or perhaps the leaker is directly involved in this chain of activity and is covering themselves by sacrificing the superior.

In any case, HP has not done well with executives from Lucent and NCR/Terradata. Perhaps it is time to consider promoting from within? Where can HP find someone to restore the HP way? Certainly not from outside.

The performance problems of the G part of the G965 aren't going to improve, even with the C2 stepping.

I wouldn't hold your breath. It took Intel three tries to make a modern embedded chipset with "decent" low-end performance, with the GMA 900, and that wasn't even very advanced. With hardware shaders, this is an entirely new concept for Intel to tackle, so give them till next chipset to beat the performance of the GMA 950.

Of course, the Inq could be full of shit, but when it comes to Intel and graphics I'd be skeptical if OEMs DIDN'T call it crap.

But this reply shows they have the day at hearrrrrrrrrrrrrt, matey.

from http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34 476:

From: help@google.com
Subject: Re: [#73859603]
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 10:44:27 -0700

Ahoy mate,

Thank'ee fer th' logo ye be suggestin'. We enjoy celebratin' horlidays at Google.

As ye may imagine, it be terrible difficult fer us t' choose which events t' be celebratin' on our site. We be hav'in a long list o' horlidays that we'd be liken' ter celebrate in th' future. We be hav'in ter balance this rotatin' calendar with th' need te be maintainin' the likeness o' the Google homepage.

Some horlidays that we no' been celebratin' in the past will be rotatin' into our horliday doodles fer future years.

Please remember ye can be visitin' any o' our doodles at http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html

Arrrrrrr,
The Google Team

But Niagara has 8 cores, each capable of runnning 4 threads. Importantly, they all use the same instruction set and have access to external memory. They all have MMUs too.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=19 423

It's an SMP beast.

So you could run a traditional OS on it, and all the cores would be used if needed. On a Cell, there is a single PowerPC core, which is a bit underpowered with no out of order execution for example. The bulk of the processing power is in the SPEs. But these have a different instruction set, no access to external memory and no MMU.

If you're writing a game with procedural textures, you can live with this by partitioning the algorithm amongst the SPEs and using the PowerPC essentially for housekeeping. But it would take a lot of work to partition a general purpose OS like this. So the two machines are not really aimed at the same market.