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KickAss Gear News Archive: April 2004

April 29th

DaimlerChrysler Scoffs at SCO

DaimlerChrysler has responded to SCO's legal action by saying they have no contract with SCO, and haven't used Unix in 7 years. See what happens when you change the litigant in a large corporate legal action just days before filing? It's going to go down in history as one of the largest, and lamest, corporate legal bluffs.

Dual-Core Opterons to be 940-Pin Compatible

AMD has announced that next year a dual-core version of the Opteron will be available that will fit into current 940-pin motherboards. That will be good news for folks who bought 940-pin systems, rather than waiting for the 939-pin versions to come out. It means that with a simple CPU upgrade, users will be able to turn their systems into dual-processor computers. Keep in mind that you will need to reinstall Windows XP Pro or 2000 in order to have the OS recognize the "second" CPU. Windows XP Home, Windows Me, and Windows 98 users are going to have to upgrade their operating systems to use a dual-core CPU.

April 28th

Pixel Shader 3.0 Lowdown

HardOCP has an article up that details the differences between Pixel shader 2.0 (in Radeon 9500 and higher, or GeForce FX cards) and Pixel Shader 3.0. Apparently, while there are a few things that might improve image quality, such as displacement mapping for making surfaces 3-dimensional, most of the enhancements appear to improve game performance, rather than image quality.

April 27th

Graphics Watch

ATI was supposed to announce its X800 video card series yesterday, but that didn't happen. And we are still waiting for any word on NVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra cards, which were announced earlier this month. According to NVidia, the 6800 Ultra should actually become available around June 1st, which is also the scheduled debut date for Doom III. The ATI X800 Pro cards should be along a few weeks later. It will be quite interesting indeed to see how the head-to-head benchmarks work out in different games.

April 25th

Return of the Rambus

Somehow Rambus has managed to bamboozle a judge into siding with them against the memory industry, and are lined up to gain billions in ill-gotten gains if the ruling stands. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has appealed, and will try to prove that Rambus acted in bad faith at the JEDEC memory standards meetings throughout the early 1990's. Of course that is pretty much the argument they used last time, which didn't impress the clueless judge, who seemed to adhere to the notion that standards bodies are filled with cheats and cutthroats anyway, so what's one more?

We'll see if we get a more reasoned judge this time around, and then it will be Rambus' turn to appeal the decision. Law is such fun.

Anti-Spyware Law Proposed in New York

Senator Balboni of NY has introduced a bill which will criminalize the installation of spyware without the express permission of the end user (victim). The bill would make it a misdemeanor to install spyware or keylogging programs onto a remote computer using an internet connection, unless the victim accepts an agreement to allow the installation. Sounds good to me, but what about all that spyware installed on computers everywhere already? Grandfathered in perhaps, as it was installed before the law? I'm all for a reduction in spying, but something seems amiss here.

It all seems kind of surreal having the government protect us from private spyware, while all the time increasing their personal surveillance of US citizens via the Patriot act. "We can spy on you, but businesses can't"... Kind of gives me the creeps.

November 2nd seems so far away.

April 23rd

Pixel Shader 3 Worthless?

An article over at The Inquirer suggests that all the hype about Pixel Shader 3 has been bogus, and that PS 2.0 and PS 3.0 games are visually indistinguishable. In fact, ATI has accused NVidia of cheating (again!) while showing off PS 3.0 technology recently. Instead of comparing PS 2.0 to PS 3.0 technology, they were comparing PS 1.1 to PS 2.0, and hoped nobody would notice or know any better. If this ends up being confirmed, it will be a big setback for NVidia, and another black eye in its war with ATI. It seems as though ATI has timed this accusation perfectly to dampen NVidia's GeForce 6800 Ultra debut.

Windows for Linux READY!

You haven't heard about it, but its just about ready... a program that emulates Windows on a Linux box. Ooooooo. We all better grab a copy before Bill Kills it (Bill Kill vol. 2?) with legal actions out the wazoo. The program was developed in the Philippines by a company called SpecOps Labs, and the program is said to be a bridge layer that runs between Linux and Windows. The software, called David (as in David and Goliath?), will be cheap (maybe $50), and will be available by the end of the year. It is said to make a more stable OS platform than pure Windows, but we don't know if there is going to be a performance hit or not.

And Bill thought Lindows was a pain.

Half Life 2 Soap Opera Continues

I'm not sure why delayed computer games drive some people so crazy, but apparently they do. The Site Director at Planet Half Life has quit, and posted an angry rant about HL2 delays and company spin. Heck folks, these are businesses, not sororities, so what makes you think they are going to be paragons of truth and perfection. They're trying to make a buck!

Heck, if HL2 is good, I can wait. So grab a copy of Far Cry or Painkiller, and relax.

April 22nd

Darl and Friends Must Go

Darl McBride is persona non grata at SCO, at least according to BayStar Capital, which wants all the no-nothing hacks at SCO to get the boot. They feel that SCO is being poorly run (duh!), and that new management is needed. They concede that SCO's Unix business is dead, and that their only hope of making money is via the "IP route", that is... sue people.

As such, we can surmize that BayStar was told by Microsoft that SCO was a no-brainer IP bonanza for anyone willing to fund it. Now BayStar is finding out otherwise. So that's why BayStar is currently saying that they may not ask for their $20 million back, under the conditions that the management is replaced. Don't you feel bad for Darl and his buddies?

April 21st

Noose Closing in on SCO

Darl McBride once said that he wasn't trying to make friends, he was trying to help investors by driving the stock price up. Well, he succeeded in both by not making any friends, and by artificially inflating the stock price. But it is a classic case of a Pyrrhic victory if I've ever seen one (the ancient Greek King Pyrrhus once said after barely winning a battle, "with more victories like this, we are finished"). Indeed, it's a case of winning unimportant battles while losing the war.

There is still no word from BayStar Capital why they want their $20 million back from SCO, but it is apparently due to the fact that they believe that SCO has not been honest with them about their legal and business position. If this leads the Royal Bank of Canada to ask for it's $30 million back, things are going to get very interesting. SCO would be forced to use the money they got from BayStar and the RBC to defend themselves in court, arguing that they don't have to give the money back. Talk about being surrounded, SCO is now battling IBM, Red Hat, AutoZone, Daimler Chrysler, BayStar Capital, and possibly the Royal Bank of Canada. Don't forget they are in trouble in Europe and Australia too. And now Red Hat has insisted that their case go forward against SCO, independent of the case against IBM.

It is quite likely that SCO will need to file for bankruptcy if the Royal Canadian Bank demands its money back. Many analysts believe that SCO's days are numbered, and the number is small.

Where are the GeForce 6800 Ultra Cards?

As the supposed release date of April 24 rapidly approaches, I have noticed a strange lack of GeForce 6800 Ultra cards being listed at any distributor. It's possible that NVidia is only going to release them initially at certain big retail outlets, and I guess we'll find that out soon. But if they miss the ship date, it's that much more time that ATI has to get it's X800XT to market, which is thought to be sometime next month. Rumors of ATI's performance have suggested recently that their top end card might still beat NVidia's 6800 Ultra. But NVidia has an ace in the hole with their Pixel Shader 3.0 support. Normally, it wouldn't be too big a deal, but a popular new game called Far Cry just happens to have PS 3.0 support built in, before any capable hardware is to market! That's pretty amazing, considering that game technology usually lags hardware technology by 6 months to a year. Guess who is now rushing to add PS 3.0 support to their video cards, much in the same way that Intel rushed to add 64-bit extensions to their processors?

April 19th

Apple Makes Shoddy Stuff: Official

Apple's main selling points for years have been "easy to use", "more reliable" and "higher quality". Only recently have they been disingenuous enough to say they made "the fastest computers". But to be honest, Apple OS-X really isn't any easier to use than Windows XP, even though it may be somewhat more reliable as an operating system. But what about "higher quality hardware"? Well, that myth has now been thoroughly thrashed by a Mac aficionado. Indeed, you don't need to read his scathing assessment of Apple's failing quality control to know that Apple products have been showing up with quite a few defects recently. But heck, if money doesn't mean anything to you, just head out and buy some shoddy, overpriced Apple-ware... you'll be semi-glad you did.

NVidia 250Gb Chipset Works Better with NVidia FX

Scott over at the Tech Report shows how the new NVidia NForce3 250Gb chipset works better with a GeForce FX card than with a 9800XT video card from ATI. In some cases the differences are very significant, in other tests, there are no differences. Will this drive any ATI fans to buy a GeForce card when they next upgrade? Who knows?

April 18th

Gravity Probe B Ready to Launch

NASA is preparing to launch Gravity Probe B, its longest running experimental program, tomorrow, April 19th. The project has taken over 40 years to plan and complete, at a cost of approximately $700 million. The reason for the high cost is that the probe contains the most sensitive gyroscopic equipment ever created, which will be used to test Einstein's theory of gravity. Einstein predicted that the gravity created by a large mass would warp space-time, but he also predicted that if the large mass was rotating it would create a drag effect on space-time known as frame dragging. Gravity Probe B will be able to test Einstein's theory using Earth's relatively small gravitational field because the instruments are so sensitive.

April 17th

"Oh No", Says SCO

Things couldn't get much worse for poor SCO. Baystar Capital, an investment firm that gave $20 million to SCO at the behest of Microsoft, wants its money back... Now! But SCO is down to a measly $11 million cash on hand. Hmmm, maybe a few hundred thousand more Linux licenses will do the trick. No one outside of Baystar knows why they have decided to redeem their A-1 convertible stock in SCO, but Baystar has said that SCO did not live up to its end of their business agreement. The only thing I can think of was that leaked memo which showed how Microsoft talked Baystar into making the investment in SCO. Maybe folks at both MS and Baystar aren't happy with the unwelcome attention that memo has generated.

SCO Spokesperson Blake Stowell said that Baystar was claiming 4 provisions of the agreement had been violated. Basically, they seem to relate to SCO not having been honest about their legal position in their court cases. It all sounds very shady to me, both in terms of SCO's corporate behavior, and Baystar's as well.

April 16th

Panic at SCO

SCO's day turned a tad worse when Baystar Capital requested that SCO redeem 20,000 shares of preferred stock, basically akin to demanding a $20 million refund on the deal. Ouch. This follows IBM's request for a summary judgment against SCO, which is akin to asking that the case be dismissed in whole or in part.

Woe is SCO. Joy to the world.

April 15th

NVidia Unfound

Yesterday, NVidia released the worlds most powerful desktop graphics processor. Today, you won't find one anywhere. According to the reports I've read, the actual release date is around April 26th. Of course that may just be to a select group of retail outlets, like Best Buy, with availability elsewhere being very limited. But what this April release does do is put NVidia squarely ahead of ATI for the first time in well over a year.

And based on the ATI scuttlebutt, ATI won't have anything comparable to market until early to mid Summer. That's a pretty big window of opportunity in the graphics card business. Further, Doom III and Half Life 2 should make it to market this Summer (ETA June 1st), which could also give NVidia an edge if their cards beat ATI's by a significant margin in benchmarks with the two new game engines.

It is also likely that the 6800 Ultra will boost high-end power supply sales, because the 6800 Ultra cards require two power lines to be dedicated to the video card itself. I'm sure that many people will think their 300W PS is enough, only to be forced back to the store to pick up a 480W "True Power" supply from Antec.

So if you were thinking of forking over $500 for a 6800 Ultra, and hooking it to your 60 inch plasma HDTV, you're just going to have to cool it for another couple weeks. And no drooling, please.

April 14th

NVidia Unveiled

Today is the day that the GeForce 6800 reviews hit the web. The chip is bigger (220 million transistors) than any desktop CPU, and it's packed with goodies. As Scott at The Tech Report states: "I'm pleased to report that it's really, really good".

Another telling quote: "Compared to the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, NVIDIA says the NV40 has two times the geometry processing power, four to eight times the 32-bit floating-point pixel shading power, and four times the occlusion culling performance. The company modestly says this is the biggest single performance leap between product generations in its history".

Very nice. But don't expect ATI to take this lying down.

April 13th

Intel Cornered

Stories indicate that Dell (read Intel in a box) has been forced to remove the 3.4GHz Intel Pentium4 Extreme Edition from it's lineup due to lack of supply. The fact is, Intel is probably close to their GHz limit on the current chip, and adding 3MB of cache means that all that cache needs to work on every chip shipped, or you've got a problem. Result: low yields on 3.4GHz EE chips. Perhaps very low. Ergo, poor supply and many unhappy Dellites.

Intel was forced to release the P4 EE chip to counter AMD's 64-bit Athlon 64FX chips, which perform much faster clock for clock, and keep up well with Intel chips running a GHz faster. Ahhh, that good old, deep Intel pipeline continues to bite. Add to this the woes on Intel's 64-bit efforts, and you have a very high misery index to be sure. The end result is that Intel is cornered by AMD on several fronts, and needs a plan B. I will be very interested to see what they come up with, because they've got the money and talent required to do big things.

Here Come the Pixels!

NVidia and ATI are just about to announce (release?) their new video cards, and HardOCP has some of the details. Both top-end cards look very good, but apparently only the NVidia card will have Pixel Shader 3 support, and HDTV output. Release dates range from this month to June for the various flavor cards from both vendors.

April 12th

Worm Wars

What's the world coming to when content providers and content disseminators battle to knock out each others web sites with worms? The latest version of the Netsky worm has brought down several music and file trading web sites. Previously, hackers have taken down the RIAA's web site several times using denial of service attacks.

As the RIAA sues customers for trading files, they are also apparently hiring hackers to write worms to attack file trading web servers. I expect that hackers that have no love for the RIAA will now respond in kind. Maybe we'll all luck out, and they will end up destroying each other, leaving the world a more peaceful place.

April 11th

Windows 2000
Service Pack 5

Will Microsoft ever release Windows 2000 SP5? As of now it is "TBA", or 'to be announced'. Considering all of the current fuss about Windows XP Service Pack 2, the silence is ominous. I can virtually guarantee you that SP5 is not a priority at Microsoft now. However, there is still a substantial Windows 2K user base, and in many cases, like the Federal Government, they are not customers that MS can easily afford to ignore.

Get hopping Bill.

Hollywood Hates You (but loves your money)

If only Hollywood could get rid of you, but keep your money, they'd do it in a Los Angeles instant. You are the only thing standing between Hollywood and your money, and that is unacceptable. You see, they hate you and your digital recording ways; and they want to get rid of you... and your little dog Toto too. If they can't sue you, they'll have to figure something else out.

Well that's what they are working on just now. There is a set of proposals before the FCC that would greatly limit how digital recordings can be moved from one device to the other. This is Digital Right Management version 2.0, and it's a doosey. Hollywood is scared to death that HDTV and digital recording devices will be their demise. So they have offered the FCC proposals that will limit how devices can record digital signals, as well as limiting how digital signals can be sent over networks, including of course, the Internet. Basically, if adopted the new measures would make it impossible to record HDTV or other high-definition files to any recording device, and would prevent moving the files over cabled or Wi-Fi networks.

Part of the effort is aimed at phasing out analog signals altogether, because they can't be locked down the way a digital output device can.

Just makes you want to rush out and buy Hollywood's products, doesn't it? Time to write my Senators and Congressperson again.

April 10th

A Letter to Bill Gates

Dear Bill,

I've been meaning to thank you for getting Baystar to cough up that 50 mil for SCO, but we'll talk about that later. What I wanted to touch on today is the news that Long-way-off-Horn is not only delayed until mid-2006 (will MS still be in business by then?), but will also have many important features stripped out. As you know, this is a significant concern in the IT industry; we had all been counting on you to keep the cash flowing for new hardware and software updates that would be required by the new OS. Alas, that will all have to wait. But I have a few suggestions.

First, put some good people back on Windows XP 64-bit edition, it's the only thing you've got on the table that will drive hardware and software sales over the next two years. Think about it... hard. Next, I'd like to say that if you're pulling out the new file system and file linking features from Long-way-off-Horn, what have you got left that is new? Security? Just add that to SP2 and XP-64!! And this deal about making Windows Media Player into an Apple iPod killer? Forget it. I don't even use Media Player unless I'm forced to, and I don't use version 9. I don't buy operating systems for the stupid little toys you bundle with them.

So please, for once in your life, listen to me. Take some people off of Long-way, and put them on Windows XP-64 and SP2, and make sure both products turn out tight and secure. You'll do just fine, especially as people start to upgrade to 64-bit systems and software. And don't wait for Intel, they are stuck in the mud trying to reverse-engineer AMD's Athlon-64.

Sincerely,

April 9th

SCO Delay Game

Get this. SCO has a full year before the court case with IBM is scheduled (April 2005!), but they have asked the judge in the case for an additional 5 month delay. They have got to be kidding; if it isn't obvious to everyone that they are trying to stall, then I must be the Easter Bunny. SCO apparently has no case, but they have managed to boost their stock price based on misinformation and uncertainty. They want to string that cash cow out as long as possible, before the cow croaks.

SCO says that they can't tell IBM what code in Linux infringes Unix copyrights until IBM shows them all their Unix code. Now wait a minute: SCO said they knew what code was infringing, and that was why they sued IBM. Now they say they can't tell us what code is infringing until they see all of IBM's Unix code. It can't be both ways; either they've seen IBM's code, and know it is infringing, or they're just guessing that it might be infringing, and they need to see it to find out. Based on the request for a delay until September of 2005, it's obvious that the later case is true.

I'm still confused as to why this lawsuit hasn't been thrown out of court.

April 8th

Intel Being Bad Boy in Japan

A short blurb at News.com says that Japan's Fair Trade Commission raided Intel's Japan headquarters earlier today looking for evidence that Intel pressures manufacturers to NOT use AMD chips in their systems. Of course we've all known that they do this for many years, but proving it is another thing. Intel offers many carrots along with their sticks in dealing with computer makers (I should know). Indeed, if you play nice, Intel gives you piles of cash at the end of each quarter for every Intel item you sell.

Big pockets.

It will be interesting to see if anything comes of this, other than Intel having to pay some official a pile of cash at the end of each quarter.

In a completely unrelated story, the Microprocessor Watch writes that Intel developed their x86-64 bit CPU instructions by... get this: reading AMD's prerelease documents, and reverse engineering AMD Opterons! Oh how the mighty have fallen.

April 5th

GeForce 6 Cards Looking Good

NVidia has been on the ropes lately, but with the debut of the GeForce 6 in two weeks, things might just change. The rumors are swirling on the web that the GF6 is nearly twice as fast as the GeForce FX 5950, as well as being a little faster than ATI's upcoming R420 Radeon. This all might be pre-release hype, but the folks who I've spoken to who have samples say that the rumors aren't far off.

If NVidia can get such a beast to market this month in quantity, they might just have a winner. Current high-end video cards will deliver between 6,000 and 7,000 3D Marks with 3D Mark 2003, but the GeForce 6 is said to deliver 12,000 3D Marks or better. When games like Doom III make it to store shelves, there should be a good market for video cards that are twice as fast as current models. Maybe this explains why cards like the Radeon 9800 Pro have dropped to near $200 in price recently.

April 4th

Gee, That Gmail is Great

Google is getting lots of flack for their announcement that they would begin offering free email services with a GB of storage per address. The extremely generous offer apparently comes at a price, which is that Google retains information about all of your e-mailing habits and activities. Put that together with Google's ability to keep track of your surfing habits while using Google's search engine, and you have a very powerful method for keeping tabs on everyone.

As such, Google-Watch.org has a suggestion if you are going to take Gmail up on their offer... delete your "Google cookie" before and after you sign up for Gmail. I checked my Google cookie, and it has 1672 hits so far! That's a lot of Googlling. Your cookies should be located in a folder at C:\documents and settings\"your logon name"\cookies.

April 3rd

Intel's PR on "PR"

I was sure it was an April Fools joke, but I keep seeing stories that Intel is switching from GHz to a performance rating (PR) system! How weird is that? They yell and scream and point fingers for years at AMD's PR rating system, and then switch to it, right after switching to AMD 64-bit extensions, and moving the memory controller on-die, just like AMD? Hell, at this point Intel might as well just call itself "AMD-wannabe".

How can such a big, experienced company get so much so wrong that they need to copy so many of the actions of the little-bitty competitor?

This is a joke... right? :|

NVidia Dumps APU Sound

Apparently, NVidia is planning on dropping their on-board sound chip, or audio processing unit (APU), from upcoming motherboards. This has a lot of users mad, and some have set up a petition you can sign that will go to NVidia to try and get them to change their minds. The petition is here.

Sure, the APU isn't perfect, and the new SoundBlaster has more features, but an improved APU would still make a very nice addition to upcoming NForce motherboards.

April 2nd

Pixel Shader 3.0 Scrap

There is a controversy brewing over the upcoming Pixel Shader 3 technology (PS3) in future games. A leaked ATI presentation makes it clear that the next Radeon (R420) will Not have PS3 support, whereas the NVidia NV40 chip will. ATI knows this will be a problem of perception, but in my opinion it really shouldn't be. Games with PS3 support are probably a year or more away, by which time ATI and NVidia's next generation cards will be out. So NVidia will only have an imaginary advantage for the upcoming round of graphics cards. The problem with leaks like this for manufacturers is that customers will be tempted to skip a generation of graphics cards to save money. Why upgrade to a PS3 capable card if there aren't (and won't be for some time) any games that can use it?

The decision as to whether to upgrade to the R420 Radeon or NV40 GeForce this Summer for most people will boil down to how much faster they are than current video cards. If the NV40 is a little faster than R420, and a lot faster than the current Radeon 9800XT, then I expect the fact that it also has PS3 support will tip the decision in their favor for many customers.

Longhorn, XP SP2, and Windows Security

Microsoft is now saying that its test version of Windows Longhorn has been delayed, and will not be ready in 2004. Much of the delay has been due to extensive work on Windows XP/Server 2003 security updates in Service Pack 2. You can read into this fact that they didn't realize how hard it would be to make Windows into a secure operating system. It's like trying to patch all the holes in a ship made of wicker and thatch.

Much has been made of the declaration that SP2 would "break" many applications that just won't work once the new security features are implemented. But I'm noticing something much more ominous. The complete lack of attention to Windows 2000, which still has a huge customer base. Is this another attempt by Bill to force everyone to pony up for Windows XP, by not providing security updates for Windows 2000? Probably. Since Longhorn is Longway off, Bill has to figure out some way to extort more money from current Windows users.

APRIL 1st

IBM Buys SCO, Fires Everyone

In a move that has stunned the IT industry, IBM has purchased SCO outright for $500 million. Immediately after the acquisition, IBM fired all SCO employees including Darl McBride, SCO's CEO. IBM representatives were quoted as saying, "a dark day in the IT industry has ended, and now Linux development and deployment can move forward unfettered by legal threats".

It is uncertain what will happen to SCO's core business, selling software for cash registers and like, but it is unlikely that IBM will continue to service those customers. It is more likely that IBM will disband SCO entirely and sell off any company assets.

It is also uncertain what this means for Linux in general. An IBM employee who wished not to be named was quoted as saying "Linux is ours now, all ours!... no one can stop us". However, an official IBM statement released after the acquisition was more concessionary, "Linux has been set free, and we look forward to working with the Linux community to make it the best operating system in the world".

Microsoft's Bill Gates could not be reached for comment. However, an unnamed and balding Microsoft official was heard to say "Shit!" behind closed doors. Darl McBride was contacted on vacation in St. Lucia for comments. Sipping on Mai Thais and surrounded by bodyguards, McBride said, "This is the life."

Copyright 2004, KickAss Gear