News Archive

As if AMD didn't have enough to worry about already, now they will apparently delay the release of the desktop version of their 64-bit CPU until September, nearly a one year delay over the original release date. The "Opteron" server version of the chip will still be released in April, suggesting that the chips are ready before full software support is in place. The server version will run fine in Linux boxes, but the desktop version really needs Microsoft to finish up "Windows64" before the masses will scarf them up for home use.

This isn't bad news for AMD, it's terrible news. The main reason is that Intel isn't sitting still, and will have a fairly formidable processor by Fall. Indeed, this latest development may put AMD into catch-up mode for the foreseeable future. Now, AMD will have to shift gears in order to push it's way into the low-end server market, while just hanging on in the desktop market with their interim "Barton" chip. If Barton doesn't scale much above 2.5GHz, AMD will probably continue to lose market share to Intel. Pricing will be a big factor. If AMD keeps trying to get $400 for their top-of-the-line CPU, they will not sell quickly. If the price drops below $300, that may change the situation. But what they need to avoid is dumping large numbers of processors onto the gray market at cut-rate prices, throwing the supply chain into turmoil once again.

A 3 judge panel ruled 2 to 1 that Rambus is innocent of wrongdoing, and is owed millions by unscrupulous DRAM makers. As expected, Rambus' stock price soared on the bogus ruling. But it's not all hunky dory in Rambusland, because the judges sent the whole thing back to the lower court for reconsideration. So I guess I can say this is very good news indeed for Rambus' lawyers, who were starting to feel as lonely as Maytag repairmen.

At least one of the judges had their heads screwed on right, the other two are obviously clueless as to the extent of wrongdoing by Rambus.

Unreal Fans will be glad to hear that Unreal 2 will be released in February (perhaps as early as the 4th). Should be fun!

The Internet is slowly returning to functionality after a now infamous worm targeted at Microsoft servers has made the rounds. SQL Slammer lived up to it's name, bringing down not just the Internet, but mail servers and even automatic teller machines. As another in a long list of patches is applied to limit the vulnerability in Microsoft's SQL Server, things are getting back to normal. But not unlike the terrorist attacks of 2001, the level of damage caused by the worm stunned IT managers and analysts. Systems thought completely invulnerable turned out to be very susceptible. Of course Linux servers didn't even blink, but that's another story altogether.

Analysts are quietly delighted that the perpetrators were kind enough to release the worm without any "payload". This is akin to a 'wake up call', rather than an outright cyberattack. If they had wanted to erase everyone's hard drives, that would have been the easier code to write.

You can bet your bippy that law enforcement agencies around the world are looking long and hard at server logs to try and trace the origins of SQL Slammer, but chances are the hunt will be fruitless. This of course means you can look forward to the upgraded "Version 2.0" in the coming months. "

The lack of security on Microsoft products is now legend. Witness the near demise of the Internet over the last couple days, thanks to a worm that trashes servers running Microsoft's SQL software. Another patch has been released, and as it gets applied by sleepy, overworked IT folk, things will get back to normal, where only spam and popup ads slow the Internet to a crawl.

If you're bored while waiting for your favorite web site to display, you can head over to the Inquirer for a quick read of how they uncovered a Republican spam-letter sent to almost every newspaper editor in the country as a bonafide "letter to the editor". Nearly 50 newspapers published the drivel stating: "When it comes to the economy, President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership...." Yeah, right. If it didn't sound so much like attempted brainwashing, it might even be funny.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) usually spends all it's time trolling the Internet for evil music pirates like yourself. But now they are joining hardware and software makers in a new alliance aimed at curbing the move toward mandatory copy protection measures to be incorporated into new computers, operating systems and applications.

I don't suppose that this could have anything to do with the recent release of a virus that shuts down people's computers after telling them that the BSA has found illegal copyrighted materials on your hard drive. If you go to the BSA website, you'll get a popup message that reads:

"URGENT MESSAGE

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is not responsible for the Opaserv worm.

This is a malicious act that tricks victims into believing that the Business Software Alliance has shut down their computer due to licensing issues."

No, instead I think that computer makers may have finally convinced the BSA that the computer business is doing badly enough now that they don't need any other problems. It will be interesting to see the MPAA and RIAA in a head to head fight with the BSA and hardware makers like Intel.

BSA Alliance for Digital Progress

There is a "3D Mark 2003 Teaser" posted over at Futuremark.com, suggesting that the new, DX9 compatible 3D benchmark is almost ready for prime time. Owners of Radeon 9700 cards have been eager to see what DX9 would give them in terms of new 3D features and special effects, but have been left wanting for a lack of any DX9 games or benchmarks. That may change soon. Keep your eye on the 3D Mark web page for announcements.

Intel has announced that they are delaying their 90 nm, dual-core Itanium-2 CPU update codenamed "Montecito" until 2005. This highlights both the potential of 90 nm fabrication, and the difficulty of perfecting a single-chip, dual-core CPU design. Rumor has it that AMD is working on a dual-core, 90 nm Hammer chip, so it looks like the race is on.

Don't expect a desktop dual-core design any time soon, but this is obviously the direction that computer design is headed. So I expect that affordable dual-core CPUs will be available about a year after dual-core server chips hit the market.

Jack Russell has a nice article setting the record straight on Rambus. If you love to hate Rambus, it's required reading.

Mandrake is one of the most popular forms of Linux amongst aficionados, but the company is filling for bankruptcy nonetheless. According to the companies statement, their financial situation is improving, and they need to reorganize to make the company more viable.

Linux is an open source operating system, meaning you can't make money on the OS per se. You can make money on the support you offer customers, but obviously, you can't charge an arm and a leg for Linux support, they way MS can for Windows. I expect that Mandrakesoft will get grass roots support from Linux users, but it may be too little too late to save them. Let's hope that's not the case.

AMD lost over $850 million in the last quarter. I assume that next quarter will be better, after cost cutting measures (layoffs) and other reorganizations. Also, the Barton and Hammer series of CPUs will debut, so there is a real glimmer of hope on the horizon. Indeed, that hope has kept AMDs stock price from plummeting as you might expect over the last few months, with one negative news story after another coming out. The stock price has actually been slowly climbing over the last 3 months, so I've got to think that many investors are "buying low" in the hopes that the Hammer will boost AMDs revenues substantially in the Spring. It better, or Hector may be looking for a new job by Summer!!!

The leaks that flow from AMD on the upcoming "Hammer" series of 64-bit processors continue to paint a slower than expected picture. First it was the operating speeds for the CPUs, and now it's the memory interface. According to some accounts, the initial motherboards supporting the Hammer CPU will be plain old DDR333 compatible units. There could of course be unofficial support for DDR400, but running the memory asynchronously never helps much anyway. What this does mean is that there will not be DDR-II support for the first round of motherboards. Early adopters may wish they had waited a few months for improved chipsets to debut from the likes of VIA, SiS and NVidia.

The buzz from NVidia is that NV30-based GeForceFX cards will become available within the next month. The specs and preliminary benchmarks look very good, especially with DDR-II memory running at a whopping 1GHz! These cards will be scarce and expensive at first, but will be plentiful and cheaper by March. The next question is, when will Doom III be out? :)

Whom exactly is the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)? Above all, they are a bunch of very well paid lobbyists in Washington DC who wine and dine Senators and Congresspersons in the hopes of getting their way. The MPAA has more influence in Washington DC than Colin Powell, and they use it effectively. And what are they up to these days you ask? Making sure that the long touted "convergence" in electronics never happens. The idea of convergence is that some day your digital camcorder, PC, HDTV, surround sound system, cell phone, and car will all be connected via a high speed, wireless network. So, for example, you could be taking videos of the kids in the back yard, and transmitting the data stream to your PC for storage on the hard drive, to the home entertainment system so the rest of the family can watch live from the home entertainment system in the living room (with surround sound), and to grandma's video cell phone in sunny Florida, all simultaneously.

There could be great advantages to such connectivity, and the hardware end of things is coming together nicely. So it's time to finalize the connectivity standards that will let many manufacturers produce compatible devices, and this process has been progressing well. But the standardization process is reported to have ground to a halt due to intervention by the MPAA. Indeed, Digital Rights Management (DRM) is rearing it's ubiquitous, ugly head again, and the end result will be further delays in getting new technologies to the public. Money and politics are like bread and butter, and the MPAA's influence in Washington is another perfect example. So don't hold your breath while waiting for a standardized network protocol for home electronics, because you'll die while waiting for the standards to make it past all the political barriers imposed by the MPAA's lobbying dollars.

AMD has released a batch of Athlon XP 2600+ processors with the 333MHz front side bus frequency logo on the box, wherein you will find a 2600+ 266MHz processor. AMD knows about the problem, and has been working with distributors to fix the mixup. When we ordered the 2600+ from one of our distributors recently, we noticed that the item descriptions on different web pages had conflicting information. On the main listing, the 2600+ was listed as a 266MHz part, but on the details page, the CPUs were listed as 333MHz parts. When the processors actually arrived, the packaging had the "333MHz FSB" logo inside a green star on the front, indicating that the processors were supposed to run at 333MHz, rather than 266MHz. But when we checked the part numbers on actual chips, they ended in "C", rather than "D", meaning that the chips were rated for 266MHz operation.

AMD is already having plenty of problems keeping up with Intel, and with getting their "Hammer" series of processors ready for market. They don't need additional, self-inflicted wounds like this, and someone should be taken to task at AMD for letting this happen.

Information leaks about the upcoming AMD "Opteron" processor (aka Sledgehammer) have suggested that the chips may debut at relatively low speeds, with MHz ratings such as 1.2GHz being floated about. If true, there is at least some question as to whether these 64-bit CPUs would be very popular with consumers or businesses. But now the leaks have become much more specific, and if they are correct, the situation is not nearly as bad as the early rumors purported. According to a report at The Register, the initial rating will be 3100+, which corresponds to a bus frequency of 1.8GHz. Later on, the Opteron line will look like this: 2800+ (1.6GHz), 3100+ (1.8GHz), 3400+ (2.2GHz), 3700+ (2.4GHz), 4000+ (2.6GHz) 4300+ (2.8GHz). These are very intriguing numbers, and bode well for a positive public reaction to the "Hammer" line of AMD processors when they debut.

According to reports, AMI has released their latest BIOS version (8), and it is "Palladium" enabled. This means that secret BIOS functions are included which will interface with the "Palladium" features in other hardware, and in Microsoft's upcoming "secure" operating system.

So what will consumers get out of all of this? First off, it could mean more expensive hardware and software, because companies will want to recoup some of their development dollars. It will certainly mean longer PC boot times, as the additional BIOS code is loaded, and goes through it's secret routines. Also, you can be fairly certain that systems will be less stable with the additional code loaded in the background, along with the additional background activity associated with it. So there you have it, after all that effort at shortening boot times, and improving stability, systems will be set back years by the addition of Palladium features.

Phillips Electronics and General Atomics have signed an agreement to develop Ultra-Wide Band wireless communications technology. UWB provides extremely high bandwidth wireless communications for short range connections, as you might have in wireless home network and entertainment systems. UWB chipsets under development may work in conjunction with emerging communications standards, such as IEEE 802.15.3a. When UWB hits the consumer market, expect wireless home networks to change dramatically, with gigabyte/sec transfer rates. This would allow, for example, wireless connections between a digital camcorder, a PC, and a home theater.

The DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) exists to hobble home DVD burners. They spend all of their time and money on figuring out ways to make DVDs completely uncopyable, but still playable on DVD players. Much of that effort is directed at lobbying Congress for more laws, or suing any poor slob who gets in their way. Take the case of poor slob #1, Matthew Pavlovich, student and computer aficionado, who was uncouth enough to post a copy of DeCSS (De-Content Scramble System) on his web site. The DVD CCA has been trying to sue Matt for some time now. Indeed, the case made it to the Supreme Court, where Justice Sandra Day O'Connor lifted a stay on a California Supreme Court ruling which went in favor of Mr. Pavlovich. All very confusing sounding, but what it means is that Matt won, and the DVD CCA lost, and the California Supreme Court ruling which exonerated Mr. Pavlovich will now stand.

Perhaps the most remarkable part about the case is that Mr. Pavlovich lives in Texas, but was being sued under a California law. Apparently, there's no place to hide if you mess with the CCA.

The Recording Industry of America (RIAA) has been working long and hard at making sure computers can't copy music files, but the organization seems particularly clueless about the technology they are lobbying Congress to hobble. This has become most apparent in the case of recent defacements of the RIAA web site by hackers, which has occurred 6 times in the last several months. The most recent hack was especially delicious for the perpetrators, allowing anyone to post bogus news items on the RIAAs news page!

The long and short of the story is that the RIAA does not comprehend the technology that they themselves are trying to limit through legislation. This happens quite often with new technologies, and it makes you wonder why organizations that lobby congress about technology issues don't do their homework before they push for new legislation.

VIA Technologies was once the King of the Hill when it came to PC motherboard chipsets. But not anymore. You can read up on the whole affair in Jack Russell's story over at The Inquirer. VIA was riding very high when Intel blew the "Camino" chipset release big time, and they were able to maintain market share for some time afterwards. But between Intel's dirty tricks and VIA's penchant for turning out quick chipsets with infuriating bugs, that has all changed. Indeed, SiS was virtually unheard of in the chipset market two years ago, but now they command a larger share of the Pentium4 chipset market that veteran VIA.

But the biggest blow to come VIA's way may be the NVidia NForce2 chipset. This is because VIA's last bastion of hope was the AMD motherboard market, where they still rein King. But with the advent of NVidia's latest chipset, that will most likely change as well. Based on our observations of the pent up demand for new, 333MHz Athlon systems, and the fact that the NForce2 chipset has finally made it's debut, it looks like AMD fans are going to switch over to NVidia-based motherboards in droves (and that includes me).

VIA had better have one hell of a great chipset in the KT400A if they want to stay in this market. But with NVidia's unique, cutting edge design, and integration of excellent sound, ethernet and firewire, VIA has quite a hill to climb before they can call themselves King again.