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Gear News Archive: March 2005
March 24th Life Imitates Computer Games In one of the most striking examples of real life following the script of a computer game, within days of the new Atari game "Act of War" being released, the plot of the game unfolded in Texas. The game opens with a news program debate between two oil company executives arguing over the escalating price of gasoline, and the causes behind it. Then the cut scene breaks to a terrorist attack taking out a major oil refinery in Texas. Then yesterday, a BP refinery in Texas exploded in flames, killing 14 and injuring 100, for as yet unidentified reasons. While it seems unlikely that terrorists were involved, I was struck by the coincidence that the news story was unfolding on the TV behind me, as the game cut scene unfolded in front of me. March 22nd Novell Goes After Windows with Linux Novell is targeting the average desktop computer user with its next version of Linux; version 10. They claim the new version will have full metadata search capabilities for all content on the hard drive, and will have a 3-D user interface similar to what Microsoft has been touting for the upcoming Windows Longhorn. The new version is scheduled to be released in 2006, the same time frame that Microsoft claims that Longhorn will debut. March 17th Time for Internet Drivers Licenses? The BBC is reporting that over one million home computers are estimated to be 'zombies'; compromised systems that are being used to hijack more computers, and to send illicit spam to all of the rest of us. This may actually be an underestimate based on our experiences with customer's computers. The major question in my mind is, do we need to mandate some kind of computer training and Internet license system that ensures a safer computing environment? Most folks surfing on the Internet aren't even sure what the Internet is, and how it differs from AOL or MSN or Bulgarian porn sites. As long as totally clueless people plug their computers into an Internet connection, without knowing anything about their computer, or computer security, things will only get worse. If we don't institute Internet licenses and have mandatory training, then it would seem the next best thing would be to have hardware firewall/routers built-into all future computers to at least afford a minimum level of security. Something has to change, or the torrent of spam and other annoyances will only grow over time. March 13th Microsoft's Sign-and-Dump Sleaze Microsoft was forced to settle another in a multitude of lawsuits, this one brought by a small company called Burst.com, makers of advanced streaming technology for internet delivery. In what has become their signature "sign-and-dump" strategy, Microsoft first lured Burst in with nondisclosure agreements and claims of partnership and cooperation, only to dump the deal as soon as they had the information they needed about the technology. Miraculously, the technology ended up in Microsoft's Media Player 9 (now you know why they can afford to give it away). When Microsoft's records were subpoenaed for the upcoming trial, all emails and other correspondence for the weeks that the negotiations with Burst were ongoing were missing. Documents from before and after the negotiations were handed over to the court. When asked why those documents were missing, Microsoft lawyers brilliantly insisted that "the technology was not interesting to Microsoft, so the emails were deleted." This has become Microsoft's modus operandi for dealing with other companies that have technology that Microsoft is incapable of engineering, but wants badly. I have friends who have also partnered with Microsoft on "joint development ventures", and they say that this is how Microsoft operates. They draw you in with claims of lucrative deals with the worlds largest software maker, only to dump you as soon as they have what they want. Why would they do this, knowing they will be sued? Because it's cheaper to pay their minions of lawyers to battle the case than it is to pay engineers to develop the software. Pure bean counting. The only way this will ever end is if courts start awarding much larger settlements to the victims of Microsoft's sign-and-dump strategy. But chances are that the courts will not want to put any crimp on Microsoft's business, so I don't expect to see that happen any time soon. Hey you little IT startups out there, want to sign an NDA with Bill? Go for it! But have your lawyers well greased. CNET News Is Shill for Comcast CNET news has an article out on HDTV, and how millions of consumers are so clueless, they don't know that regular TV signals aren't HD (high definition), or even digital. The article goes on to talk about Comcast throughout the entire piece, at one point mentioning that Comcast offers between 9 and 15 HD channels. Well woopdy doo! Satellite services provide 100% digital audio and video signals, and offer HD on many more channels, but CNET didn't even mention satellite service even once in the article. Oversight? In a pig's eye! March 12th Microsoft to Give Free Upgrade to Windows 64 According to an article at the Inquirer, Microsoft will make free upgrades to Windows 64 available to Windows XP owners. The release date may be as early as sometime in April. This is an unusually generous move for Microsoft, a move which is tainted only by the fact that AMD had a 64-bit chip to market a year and a half ago, and yet Microsoft timed the debut for when Intel had it's 64-bit copy-cat chip ready to go. I guess Microsoft thinks Intel needs all the help it can get, and perhaps they are right. Intel hasn't been doing very much right in recent years, allowing AMD to beat them at just about every turn. In any case, this is good news for all of us who have had AMD Opteron or Athlon 64 chips in our computers for what seems like ages. The era of 32-bit operating systems is coming to an end. March 8th Physics Processing Units? Oh Yeah! A well financed fabless semiconductor company called AGEIA Technologies has created the first Physics Processing Unit chip at a TMSC foundry. The new chip, which will go onto new physics processing cards, is called PhysX. The API, or programming interface (akin to Direct X for GPUs) for the new chip has been in game developers hands for over a year, and it is called the NovodeX Physics SDK. The new chip will take care of these physics actions:
The API will have these features:
Here's what the developers say about Physics Processing for games: "In war scenes, massive explosions should be followed by a destructive rain of debris and a chain reaction of damage. Nature should be as dramatic and chilling as a wall of molten lava that overcomes everything in its path, from rock and steel to flesh and bone, through forest and city to the steaming ocean shore. Characters ought to be seen in loose, flowing clothing, not just skin-tight unitards, with hair that gets swept subtly by the wind as it reacts to the motion of a virtual actor. The player’s environment should be responsive, intuitive and seamless, free of the artificial rules so frequently imposed by the limits of technology and the economy of game production, rules that prompt disbelief." So it looks like things are moving quickly along toward a new era in computer gaming, and the new PPU cards and enabled game engines might not be that far off! March 4th Intel Says US Education System Sucks Intel's Senior Vice President Pat Gelsinger recently was quoted as saying "We have a lousy education system... We have a weak infrastructure that is decaying." Indeed, Gelsinger pointed out that most big IT companies do much of their hiring from overseas, where people actually still get a decent education, but that this trend would be disastrous for America in the long run. He also lamented the dramatic decline in PhDs awarded to US students. Basically, America is becoming a country of relatively ignorant people who care little about science, technology or math, and who spend most of their free time engrossed in some form of mindless entertainment, like watching sports on TV. In fact, being well educated in America can make you an outcast with other young people because its cool to hang out and do nothing, but education is for geeks and sissies. As math and science departments at universities are reduced or closed, business and sports curricula thrive. Pretty soon all US citizens will either be salesmen, CEOs or sports star wanabees. As long as school isn't cool, and sports and entertainment rule, America will continue the long slow decline from super-power, to stupid-power. Many of our recent foreign policy blunders, including the invasion of Iraq, are good indicators that our inexorable journey toward stupid-power is well on its way. Rambus Busted! After 5 years of litigation, dismissal, and appeal, Rambus had it's butt kicked out of court in the case against Infineon by Judge Robert Payne. The case brought by Rambus against Infineon was dismissed because Rambus officials destroyed key documents on their patent strategy (gee, I wonder why?), lied under oath and failed to produce evidence. Hmmm, kind of reminds me of SCO... but I digress. Rambus says it will appeal again (and again, and again), but unless they unshred those key documents, they may have trouble getting anyone to listen to their plea for the mercy of the court. March 1st The Internet is Infectious As anyone who reads this knows, the Internet is a seething cauldron of computer infectivity where tens of thousands of already infected computers bombard the web with "bots", searching for more unsecured computers to commandeer. A recent test by a security firm confirmed the scope of the problem by hooking Windows, Mac and Linux machines to the internet without antivirus software running. The results were astonishing in terms of the speed and volume of the attacks. Windows Service Pack 1 systems without antivirus software succumbed immediately, whereas SP2 machines, as well as Macs and Linux machines were less vulnerable. It's worse than the Wild West out there folks, and there's no law East or West of the Pecos. And Bill Gates is no Judge Roy Bean. Watch yourselves out there. Copyright 2005, KickAss Gear |