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Gear News Archive: March 2004
March 31st IBM Calls SCO's Hand IBM has requested a Declaratory Statement from the judge in the District Court for the District of Utah that it has not infringed on SCO's copyright and has not breached its contractual obligations to SCO. This typically means that the lawyers are quite certain that the case lacks legal merit, and won't make it to court after the discovery process is over. This also suggests that IBM has had a legal team pouring over all relevant documents, and that they have found nothing that would permit legal recourse by SCO. And guess which side has a bigger legal team? Sure, SCO had Boies et al. on their side, but this time they have bitten off more than they can chew, and their going to choke if they try to swallow it. Notice anything about SCO's stock price recently? March 29th Half-Life2 Trailer is Amazing Valve has FINALLY released the much anticipated Half-Life 2 trailer, and I've got to admit, I'm impressed. Human faces are rendered with 40 different muscles making up the expressions, and the eyes move and reflect surrounding light. Objects have correct physical properties as advertised, and you can move almost anything around, especially with your handy tractor beam gun. Wood floats, metal sinks, and the water is extremely well rendered. If you shoot something with a pistol, it will either put bullet holes in it, or smash the object to bits, depending on the material the object is made of. The artificial intelligence looks very good too, and the artwork is excellent. I think I can say that if Valve actually gets Half Life 2 to market (that's a joke folks), it will change gaming forever. All other games will have comparatively static environments, and that will make the HL2 engine one of the more popular game engines for some time to come. And what about vehicles? HL2 has them, and they have what appears to be much more realistic physics than current popular games like Battlefield Vietnam. I think this one is going to be more fun than Doom III, but we'll have to wait and see. You can download the 631MB file from places like Fileplanet. March 27th ATI Blew It With Half-Life2 Coupon Anyone buy a Radeon card with the Half-Life 2 coupon? So far these little cards are more problem than promotion considering that the game is still many months away. The problem is that if you scratch off the silver stuff to reveal the code number on the coupon you forfeit your ability to return the video card. Of course there is no reason to scratch the silver stuff off yet, because the game is nowhere near ready. But the entire idea of a scratch-off coupon which eliminates your rights to return the hardware seems very shady to me indeed. ATI is aware of the growing level of grumbling among its customers that have purchased Radeon cards with the coupon, so they are now going to offer everyone another piece of paper that will supposedly let them get a free copy of Counter Strike 2 when they buy a new ATI video card. Of course, this game isn't ready yet either, and this deal doesn't do much for the people who already bought a Radeon with the Half Life 2 coupon. So, when exactly is Half Life 2 coming out anyway? The rumors are that it will not be until this Fall! By that time many people will have misplaced their coupons anyway. The whole thing seems like a scam to me, and I think ATI needs to make things right. They should either offer another current game for free, such as Battlefield Vietnam or UT2004, or offer everyone a $20 refund on their video card when they send in their Half Life 2 coupon... scratched off or not. March 25th Intel's Self-Made Hot Seat Intel is really hot right now. No, it's not that they are making the hottest processors on the market, but rather, they are making the hottest processor on the market, literally. Intel's current lineup of Pentium 4 chips dissipate as much as 120 W of heat, which is far above AMD's 89 W for the Opteron. Heat sinks for Intel's current lineup of chips are huge, and seem to be getting bigger all the time. While this is a minor irritation for folks who are putting together their own home computer, it is a major pain for companies trying to put together corporate servers. Some folks in the business even suggest that Intel's current line of processors will never make it into blade servers unless they are throttled back dramatically in speed. The funny part is that most server manufacturers still have not switched to the Opteron processor. However, that situation can't last. If Intel continues to make processors that double as stovetop burners, server manufacturers will be forced to switch to AMD just to keep their cool. Microsoft Combines PC and XBox Development Tools Microsoft has announced the XNA platform for game development, which will make programming games for both the PC and XBox easier. Microsoft had already based the XBox on PC parts, and the API is Direct X, just as in the case of the PC, so the two platforms are quite similar. But now, for the first time, the development tools will work across platforms, making game coding a much faster process. That means more new games will be coming out faster! Sounds good to me. Idiot Representatives Send Letter to EU Clueless members of the House of Representatives have sent a whining letter to the European Union (EU) condemning the recent ruling against Microsoft. The idiots include Robert Wexler, Dan Burton, and others who all seem to think Microsoft can do no wrong. The argument they raise in their letter is that since US courts had determined Microsoft is innocent, then the European courts must find in the same fashion. No independent thinking allowed, because the US courts are always right... right? I doubt any of these people know anything about Windows, or the way in which Microsoft does business, but that doesn't stop them from offering their ignorant opinions. Obviously, telling Microsoft to remove Media Player 9 from Windows does not stifle innovation. Indeed, as a stand-alone product, Media Player might actually generate additional revenue, and would accelerate innovation in the field. The same goes for Outlook Express and Internet Explorer. Removing these add-ons from Windows in no way stifles innovation, but it does encourage competition. Get with it clueless politicians, and at least do the research before you write the whining letters. March 24th Novell to Challenge Windows Novell has announced that they will be producing a desktop version of Linux to compete head-to-head with Windows. This is very good news for Linux fans in general, because it means that Novell will be making a product that is more user friendly, bringing more people to Linux in general. If they can produce a slick, secure and easy to use version of Linux, I guarantee that a lot of Windows users will give it a try... especially if the price is right. Novell also claims it is the owner of Unix copyrights, which is a claim that the infamous SCO disputes, thus putting Novell at the forefront of the SCO-Linux legal battle. Obviously, SCO's threats haven't deterred Novell from pushing their Linux desktop plans forward. It will be interesting to see how long it takes Novell to get a desktop Linux to market, and how it will compete against the likes of Red Hat, which has a significant head start. But Red Hat has abandoned desktop operating system development in order to concentrate on the much more lucrative server market. That leaves a big hole for Novell to fill. I'll be eagerly awaiting the results of their efforts. March 23rd Microsoft Forced to Eat Worms Today Today is the day that Bill has been dreading in Europe. The day the judge hands down Microsoft's punishment for being very bad boys and girls. The several hundred million fine will stick in Bill's throat, but that won't be half as bad for Bill's ego as having to muck around with Windows in Europe to remove Media Player 9. Actually, since MP9 is an 'un-installable' component of Windows, this really won't be a big deal, except for the shear hassle of turning out a version that is modified. But the more important part for us humans sitting on the sidelines is that this could be the start of more such court cases around the world. The US is loath to punish any large companies because of the corporate-loving culture here, but other countries don't have such blind allegiances to Corporatocracies. It would be quite heartening to see other countries around the world take a good long look at Microsoft's products, and practices, and then "make some adjustments" as necessary.
March 20th In Clever Move, SCO To Sue Government, Home of SEC We all knew that SCO and their fearful leader, Darl McBride have some weird kind of corporate death wish, but I certainly didn't think it was so pathological that they would threaten to sue the US government for using Linux. But they did. Yes, that's correct, SCO has sent letters of nasty legal intent to two government research laboratories including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center. If the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hadn't already awoken from its slumber and noticed SCO's litigation rampage against Linux users, I think that now Darl probably has their attention. What I am still trying to figure out is why these threats are even being taken seriously. It seems completely absurd to think that users of Linux would be liable for the content of the program that they purchased from another company. So even if portions of UNIX are found in the Linux operating system, there is no way you could argue that the end-user was responsible for the content. And since the allegation has not been proved (and probably never will be), it is incomprehensible that anyone could be held liable for using Linux, no matter what is in it. But Darl doesn't care about any of this really, he is more interested in the $230,000 salary and $775,000 bonus he got last year for pumping up the litany of Linux litigation. It's Bill Gates money, so there is plenty to go around. March 19th Intel's Year of Shame Intel is a massive company. They have huge clout in the IT industry, and can dictate terms with their large customers. Their business model for years was to incrementally improve performance of their processors while charging loyal customers top dollar premiums for measly 33MHz improvements in speed between models. In some cases those 33MHz could cost you hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a single CPU. Intel could take their time between model releases, and could charge pretty much whatever they wanted to for their high-end processors. But those times are gone forever. Last month Intel announced that they would be adopting AMD's 64-bit extensions in both their Xeon and Pentium 4 processor lines, after months of saying publicly that 64-bit processing was not needed on the desktop yet. Now they have gone one step further down the path of imitator-rather-than-innovator by announcing that they will be adding an on-chip memory controller to upcoming processors, just the way AMD did with their Opteron and Athlon 64 processors. If Intel were still operating as the only major supplier of PC processors, we would still be paying a lot more money for a lot less processor. But thanks to AMD, Intel is playing catch-up and is being forced to advance processor design much faster than they would have preferred. Slimy Spammers Go Home! I am inundated by SPAM. Not just a trickle here and there, but a constant flood that is so incessant that I spend more time deleting crap than I do reading real emails. No more. I finally gave up and installed a SPAM filter, called SPAM Inspector, which is very easy to use, and is discounted to $19.95 this month. It takes a couple minutes to set up, and seems to do a great job of intercepting SPAM. It integrates very nicely into Outlook, Outlook Express, Hotmail, Eudora, and other email programs. In Outlook, it dumps the SPAM directly into the "deleted items" folder, where you can check to make sure they are really SPAM before delightfully deleting them. No more X!anex or #enis en1argement drivel... Hoo Ra! I'm feeling much better now, thanks. Got Router? The so-called Phatbot virus is causing some worry among security experts, because it can infect vulnerable machines without the operator having to do anything but turn the computer on while it's connected to the Internet. Everyone I've talked to who has been on the Internet with a broadband connection, but WITHOUT a router or software firewall has been attacked by a series of viruses and Trojans that have rendered their machines into zombies. Often, in order to be certain you actually remove everything bad on an infected system, you have to reformat the hard drive and start over. So please folks, not only should you NEVER open an email attachment who's sender you don't know, but you should never connect your computer to a DSL line, satellite or cable modem without having a router in place to act as a hardware firewall. Software firewalls are an acceptable substitute, but nothing beats a hardware firewall like a router. A nice 4-port Linksys router is about $50, which is money well spent on peace-of-mind. March 18th Microsoft Naughty in Europe, It's Official Negotiations between Microsoft and the European Union (EU) have broken down for the last time, it would seem. Next Wednesday, the EU will impose it's punishments, which will include the mandatory removal of Media Player 9 from the OS. It would seem logical to include Outlook Express and Internet Explorer if you ask me, but logic rarely figures into such decisions. The funny part is, if MS makes these add-ons available as an online download for, let's say $10 for each program, they would end up making more money than they do by bundling everything together in the OS itself. You'd think it would be a no-brainer that many people would pay for these extras as long as the price and convenience factors were right. March
17th Games on Linux? I've Heard of It. I've been saying for over a year that Linux developers should concentrate on two things; MS Office compatibility, and making Linux into a top-notch gaming platform. Well, finally, Linux types are starting to think that way too. Lindows exists primarily as an Office-compatible version of Linux, and some new games are coming out with Linux support (UT2004). But that's just a start. If more game developers start to add Linux support to their upcoming titels, and eventually a Direct-X 9 add-on for Linux is perfected (Wine-X?), many gamers would be willing to move to Linux as their desktop OS. Games drive hardware sales, and my guess is that games could send flocks of players to Linux if the built-in support for gaming was robust. New TCP Protocol to Speed Net Researchers at North Carolina State University's Department of Computer Science have developed a new, faster Internet protocol that may increase access speeds as much as 6,000 times over DSL. We are talking gigabytes per second over phone lines. BIC-TCP, which stands for Binary Increase Congestion-Transmission Control Protocol, is the name of the new method which beat out rival schemes developed at other universities around the world. The method works by rapidly determining where the highest bandwidth connections between points are, and utilizing them. It is impossible to tell how long the new protocols would take to implement, but I expect to start seeing BIC-TCP within two to 3 years at the latest. March 16th NVidia Skips Chip to Catch ATI According to rumors from strange sources, NVidia has been forced to practically skip the NV40 graphics chip, and to go straight to an NV45-like chip instead, just to keep up with ATI's upcoming chip, the R420. The NV45 was supposed to be NVidia's first PCI express card, but if they have dumped the NV40, then my guess is the NV45 will be released originally as an AGP part. The latest word is that the upcoming NVidia card will have 16 parallel pipelines, as compared with ATI's R420, which will have 12 pipelines. If true, this may give the NVidia part an advantage, but due to the last-minute switcheroo, the ATI card will probably be to market months earlier. Both cards will be out between Spring and Summer. March 14th Microsoft Loses in Europe Microsoft's Bill Gates must be fuming today. Negotiations between Microsoft and the European Union (EU) broke down recently, and there is a possibility that Microsoft will be ordered to pay large fines, and make a European version of Windows without Media Player 9. We feel for you Bill, but brace yourself, because there still are some governments that won't roll over and play dead for you. There is always the possibility that negotiations could be resumed after Bill cools off, but you never know how pugnacious he is going to be. I expect that there will be some backing down here, because Bill would rather eat worms than remove any bloatware from his cash cow. And while we're on the topic of Windows, it is interesting to note that more information has come out on Microsoft's backing of SCO. It turns out that Baystar Capital admits Microsoft put them up to investing $50 million in SCO, but they deny that it was Microsoft's money. They said MS talked them into making the investment. Oh! Well in that case, there's no scandal... right? I'm not sure that the SEC will see it that way when they look into this matter in light of anti-trust laws, and Microsoft's previous promises to "be good". No matter how you look at it, MS can't fund this dog and pony show anymore. The gravy train just left the station, and SCO isn't on board anymore. March 10th Corrupt Your Hard Drive and Get Twice the Space! An article at The Inquirer details how to use the Ghost hard drive copy program to double the size of your hard drive! It's a complicated process that involves tricking Ghost by shutting the computer off in the middle of loading. Most experts seem to think that the two partitions formed are overlapping, and that the extra space formed comes from areas that are used to remap bad sectors, or areas that were found to have too many errors on them to be usable. Many hard drives have unseen areas on them, and these areas are there for two reasons. First, the drive may have been intended to have a larger capacity, but some of the platters were error-prone, and had to be hidden to prevent use. The second reason is that modern hard drives have hidden space which is used to remap bad sectors as the drive gets older. This makes modern hard drives much more reliable than older ones. So I don't recommend trying this at home! March 9th New DVD Burners Will Burn Labels Too Hewlett Packard is working on new DVD burners that can also burn a monochrome image on the top of specially made blank DVD disks. After burning a DVD, you will be asked to flip the disk to etch a high contrast image on the other side. You will be able to compose what the image looks like in a drawing program, and then burn the image to the top of the disk. They are calling the new technology LightScribe, and say it will only add about $10 to current drive prices. It will also require that you use more expensive blank disks (ah ha! the catch) if you want to burn a label. March 8th That's the Way the Patent Crumbles Not many average computer users have been paying attention to the legal case between Microsoft and the small company known as Eolas. The case has taken some twists and turns over the last year, and at one point it looked like Microsoft might have to pay out nearly $1 billion in settlement costs. At the heart of this case is some of the underlying technology in modern browser software: the ability to launch a separate application from within a Web browser, which would obviously include almost anything you do on the Internet now accept clicking on a page link. An example would be clicking on an MP3 file and having a media player launch and play the file. Not particularly rocket science. In fact, considering this patent was filed in 1998, it seems quite stale with regard to the state of the art at the time. I am virtually certain that many small applications were routinely launched via browsers prior to that time. So it seems at least a little odd to me that the US patent office would award such a patent when the so-called prior art already existed. Perhaps that is why just recently a judge has thrown the case out and ruled the Eolas patent invalid. This is exceptionally good news for companies that make browser software, as it would have rendered such programs almost useless except for linking to HTML pages. What this has me thinking about is the patents held by Rambus. So far judges have ruled their patents valid, but it would seem to me that based on prior art, and the way that Rambus acted while involved with the JEDEC memory standards committee, that their DDR and SDRAM patents should be invalidated as well. Indeed, I would hope that the US patent office would start hiring many more technical IP experts who would be much more thorough in investigating patent claims with regard to prior art. Too many patents are being issued for so-called inventions that have been around for a long time, and it's got to stop. But without highly educated and knowledgeable experts reviewing the patent applications, this sad state of affairs is likely to continue for some time. March 5th Darl McBride is Packing No, not packing to leave the country, that part comes later. Currently, Darl is packing Iron, and travels with bodyguards because he fears for his life. Somebody... please check if Microsoft is paying for the bodyguards!! Bottom line here folks, don't startle Darl in a dark alley!! Of course Darl has some reason for his paranoia, self-inflicted though it is. He has attacked an entire community of people by using lies and distortions, has done so knowingly, and at the behest of a much larger, equally disliked company. That kind of misanthropic behavior could lead to paranoia in almost anyone. The latest developments in this malicious court case are perhaps a harbinger of things to come. First, it turns out that there is a traitor in their midst over at SCO. Obviously, someone who works there does not agree with the company's goals or tactics, and was fed up enough to leak the memo concerning Microsoft. Let's hope that more memos are on the way. Whoever the whistleblower is, I congratulate him/her for doing the right thing. This should also help fuel Darl's paranoia. And speaking of Microsoft, things could get very dicey if they are forced to get involved legally (for example, having to turn over financial records concerning BayStar). Despite Microsoft's denials of any financial involvement, I don't think we have heard the last of this issue, especially if an antitrust lawsuit develops against SCO. The next interesting development was that a Microsoft Word document detailing the court case against DaimlerChrysler and AutoZone contained metadata showing that Bank of America was one of the original defendants, rather than the car company. This indicates the level of the internal turmoil over SCO, and amongst the lawyers involved in the case. Finally, it is worth noting that the writing skills of the person (Michael Anderer) at the financial firm (S2) who wrote the damning memo are absolutely abysmal. How anyone with such poor language skills could ever get to be CEO of a venture capital firm is beyond me. That guy shouldn't have made it out of the eighth grade. How knows, maybe he didn't. March 4th SCO MemoGate (updated) If you need your SCO fix for today, this is it. An allegedly leaked memo from SCO discusses the ways in which they will hit up Microsoft for money. According to the memo, Microsoft had already coughed up $86 million, and should be good for another $16 million to $20 million in the short run. I particularly liked this telling quote: "Microsoft also indicated there was a lot more money out there and they would clearly rather use Baystar "like" entities to help us get signifigantly more money if we want to grow further or do acquisitions". If this memo turns out to be real, I expect that it will not only help IBM and others in their court cases, but I expect there to be some level of backlash at Microsoft. I'm sure they wanted their name kept out of this, but now Microsoft may becomC a major issue in this case. I'd love to hear what Billy boy has to say about this behind closed doors. Update: A Microsoft Word document from SCO concerning the legal actions against Daimler/Chrysler and AutoZone show that originally, Bank of America was the target rather than Daimler/Chrysler. The metadata in Word documents keeps track of what changes are made, and which author made them. As late as mid February, SCO was apparently looking to sue Bank of America rather than the car company. This shows just how flippant and disingenuous SCO is, and how they are scrambling to keep the FUD flowing, and the stock price inflated as long as possible. Write Your Reps About Fair Use! 321 Studios, makers of DVD X Copy, is in the middle of a "contact movie execs and your representatives" campaign. They are trying to get people motivated to speak out about "fair use" copying of DVDs and CDs, and are giving you all the phone numbers and email addresses you would need. They want you to do everything from calling movie execs to writing your representatives in congress. You can get involved here! March 3rd SCO Sues... Finally! SCO has finally decided to put it's foot where it's mouth is, and file suit against AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler. What precisely they have against the automobile industry remains to be determined. But it is clear that they want to drive the SCO stock price higher, at least one more time. What still isn't clear is how SCO's arguments will play in court. But as long as the court cases are pending, SCO's stock price stays up. All of these facts haven't helped their bottom line, however, because SCO reported a $2.5 million loss for the last quarter. I guess those Linux licenses aren't selling quite as well as they had hoped. March 2nd SCO Signs Rather than Sues SCO was supposed to announce which Fortune 1000 company it would sue today for using Linux. But what they announced today was that another dumb company has signed up for SCO's illegal Linux licensing program, whereby they extort money from Linux users. Twilight Zone can't touch this story for shear bizarreness. Don't Microwave Your Money An unusual report over at PrisonPlanet.com shows that US $20 bills explode when microwaved. Why would anyone test such a thing? Because a guy with a wad of $20 bills in his pocket kept setting off RFID (radio frequency identification) alarms at a truck stop. The problem was traced to the wad of $20 bills. The victim decided that microwaving the cash would put the kibosh on the RFID chips, and solve the problem. Unfortunately, the bills all exploded from Andrew Jackson's right eye; apparently the location of the RFID chip in the new bills. Well, next time your locked in a room with nothing but a microwave oven and a pile of $20 bills, at least you'll know how to blow the door. McGuyver, eat your heart out. March 1st SCO Zippered in Germany Moving much faster than US courts, a German court has ordered SCO to stop public statements about Linux and the lawsuit. The four things SCO can't say publicly are 1) that Linux contains SCO's unlawfully acquired intellectual property, 2) that if end users are running Linux they might face legal action, 3) that Linux is an unauthorized derivative of Unix, and 4) they cannot threaten to sue Linux users unless they bought an SCO License. If SCO shows proof of infringement within 30 days, they may resume disseminating the falderal. Copyright Laws Under Scrutiny As I've been yodeling about for some time now, it looks like the Committee for Economic Development is also now saying that we need to reexamine copyright law in the 21st Century. Burdensome copyright laws can actually inhibit innovation and commerce. Digital rights management (DRM) will have to figure prominently in any scheme to enforce copyrights in the Internet age, but how that is done will be critical. Indeed, the report focuses on DRM, suggesting that a simple and transparent system would be much more effective than a complex and onerous system. But how to make a simple and transparent DRM system will not be easy. The authors state: "Simply put, DRM systems are likely to fail. Technologists almost uniformly view them as
potentially valuable in the short term, as "speed bumps" that slow down attempts to obtain The report is long, but if you're stuck at work with absolutely nothing else to do, it's a good read. 3GHz Pentium 4 Prescott Delayed? Rumors on the web suggest that Intel may have hit a snag in getting the 3GHz, 90nm Prescott Pentium 4 to market. The part may be delayed until April. This leaves them with the older Northwood Pentium 4 at 3.2GHz as the top Intel chip for at least another month. It is unclear what is the cause of the delay, but candidates include excess heat generation, poor 90nm yields, or marketing reasons. It could also have something to do with the upcoming change from a 478 pin socket design to the upcoming "Socket T" 775 pin arrangement. This gives AMD a little more elbow room as they push their 64-bit Athlons and Opterons onto shelves and into boxes. Copyright 2004, KickAss Gear |
