The Register bericht dat er in het eerste kwartaal van volgend jaar een verbeterde versie van de IEEE 1394 (Firewire) standaard zal worden uitgebracht, die de maximale snelheid verdubbelt naar 800Mbps (da's een dikke 100Meg per sec):

The speed hike is the result of the already announced 1394b spec., launched in the face of Intel's Universal Serial Bus 2.0, which is now promised to reach 400Mbps and up mid-2000. USB 2.0 isn't expected to appear in product form until late next year, so if the 1394 TA's schedule is met, 800Mbps 1394 devices should be out well in advance of the Intel-sponsored solution.

The 1394 TA's chairman, James Snider, was typically bullish, claiming that 90 per cent of all camcorders to be released in Japan next year will support 1394. Fine, but so far only three PC vendors are backing the technology: Sony, Fujitsu and its inventor, Apple. Snider also cited upcoming 1394-based printers from Epson, scanners from Umax and mass storage products from Fujitsu. Again, that's hardly a massive vote of support from the PC peripherals industry.

Craig Campanaro van Sharky Extreme heeft een kleine review gepost van de MSI MS-6167 Athlon mobo. Hieronder de conlusie:

With stiff competition from the strong ASUS K7M, as well as the threat of newer more feature-oriented Athlon mainboards arriving early next year, the MS-6167 may wind up getting lost in the shuffle.

That would be a shame really, as the 6167 proved itself to be every bit the equal of the other Athlon mainboards we've tested in terms of performance and stability, as well as offering a good price point.

MSI should be proud of the last minute clean up work that went into the MS-6167's engineering, as it has clearly delivered the desired effect AMD was looking for in terms of a solid Athlon platform. We look forward to MSI's future high-end desktop platforms, including their VIA KX133-powered Athlon board as well as their upcoming i820 Pentium III platform.

Bij 3D Unlimited is een review te vinden van Abit's bekende dual socket 370 plaat, de BP6. Verdere inleiding niet nodig lijkt me...

One of the best things about this board is the integrated Ultra ATA/66 controller. You can use all of the newest devices without having to buy a controller card. Combined with the 2 UDMA/33 channels you get 4 IDE channels allowing up to 8 IDE devices. Another feature that I enjoyed was that the board has temperature monitors directly under the sockets so that they nearly touch the processor. The one gripe that I have is the lack of expandability, being limited to using sockets 370 processors but even that’s not too bad due to the newer, faster, and just as overclockable 500 MHz Celerons that are also dirt-cheap. One part that I loved about this board is SOFT MENU II, with enough bus speeds to satisfy even the most insane of overclockers. Multiplier settings up to 8x and bus speeds up to 133MHz. I have a friend who, using matched OEM Celerons, booted into Win98 running 600MHz at 2.1 volts using nothing but stock cooling with no thermal compound. For all you critics out there, yes I do know that Win98 doesn’t support duals, but it’s a good test to see how far these babies will go. If your chip can’t make a 100MHz FSB then you have 23 choices in between 100 and 66. All in all this is a great board for rendering in 3d Studio Max or playing Quake 3 with your buds, providing that you also have a decent graphics card a la TNT2.

Target PC heeft een review gepost van de Inwin A500 case. Hieronder een stukkie en een pic.

The case appears "beefy" due to the squatty nature of super-mid tower designs. Because it’s so short (less than 16" tall) it can actually fit into some pretty cramped spaces. I’ve even set this monster on my table next to the monitor. As the specs claim, it has 3, 5.25" slots and 4, 3.5" slots. In case (ha!) you’re wondering, the 4th 3.5" slot is slightly hidden in the rear top of the A500, just to the right of the power supply. InWin includes a 3.5" mounting bracket for rear mounted hard drives. Although it’s not really needed any longer, this is one of the few cases in which all the expansion cards on your motherboard could be full length. It was handy in the old Voodoo2 days, but it isn’t so much of an issue presently, but I may have just made a case (ha again!) for older system upgrades that have old, long cards. The edges are filed smooth so you’re not bloody after hurriedly installing that Celeron 366 overclocked 550, and the case in general has a solid (all-of-a-piece) feel. The motherboard tray speeds up multiple system builds because you can plug and screw all the expansion cards into the motherboard and then shove it into the case. This makes for convenient motherboard swaps as well. The two lights and two switches on the front panel evoke a love/hate relationship. From the top down is the power button. Placed immediately to the right of where most people have their CD-ROMs mounted, I’ve seen this thing pushed to eject the CD. Of course, the respective owner frowns when they’ve just turned the entire computer off. I’ve never had any problems with this "feature" but please look before you push. Next is the green power LED. The lens is a cool design that allows the users to view the "on " status from almost a 180 degree angle-a very welcome feature. Similar to the power LED is the hard drive "in use" red LED. It too, has that great lens so you don’t have to strain your neck to have HD confirmation. Lastly is the reset switch. Similar to the power button, even though it has a different shape, users just love to push this instead of ejecting a CD.

Bij Thresh's Firingsquad hebben ze het eerste deel van hun Comdex '99 report gewijd aan de nieuwe Voodoo4 en 5 van 3dfx. In het report vind je ook een interview met Scott Sellers, CTO van 3dfx. Hieronder een stukkie, hier vind je het hele verhaaltje.

With VSA technology, 3dfx is introducing two new product lines, Voodoo4 and Voodoo5. The Voodoo4 will be available as AGP or PCI single-chip budget-end boards, while the Voodoo5 series will comprise the company's multi-chip solutions. How does this work? Well, looking at the technological improvements VSA holds over Voodoo3, it makes sense for the product to be christened Voodoo4.

The Voodoo4 4000 will run at either 166MHz or 183Mhz, and will double the pixel fill rate of a Voodoo3 at the same speed. Pipelining improvements will gain another 15-20% pure fill-rate improvement as well, and support for FXT-1 and 32-bit rendering might even be enough for those looking to upgrade.

However, for power users, having the same texture fill-rate probably wouldn't be enough justification to update from that brand new Voodoo3 3500, and TNT2 (not to mention GeForce) owners will scoff at newly-added support for such "standards" as 32-bit rendering. Similarly, the single-chip solution won't be able to take advantage of 3dfx's much-ballyhooed T-Buffer effects engine. This is where the Voodoo5 comes in. Delivering on what 3dfx claims as "Insane fill-rates," the multi-chip V5 5000, 5500, and 6000 products are the ones which are going to make you sit up and notice.

timeshock moest even iets kwijt: "De BSA gaat nu ook al chatten, om illegale softwareverspreiders op te sporen":

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has stomped on 25 individuals for allegedly peddling pirated software via a chatroom.

The BSA is suing the 25 piracy minnows for their alleged part in the "warez4cable" Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel.

This sees the BSA focusing its fire power not on the people that manufacture or buy pirate software, but on the middlemen. It is the first lawsuit filed against individuals using an IRC channel to peddle pirated software, the watchdog said.

Each person is potentially liable for damages up to $100,000 per copyrighted work infringed.

The legal action was brought after BSA raids on computer equipment in Sacramento and Downey, California, and Troy and West Bloomfield in Michigan last week. This followed months of undercover manoeuvres by the BSA to catch the suspected criminals.

The unannounced inspections last week, supervised by US Marshals, led to five computers being seized.

"Because of the increased access to high-speed connections, piracy in IRC channels is fast becoming one of the most popular ways to traffic in illegal software on the Internet," said Bob Kruger, BSA vice president of enforcement.

"That is why the BSA is taking immediate action against this aggressive form of piracy," he said.

The BSA said it was able to identify the individuals and prosecute them by using a special subpoena procedure created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

Kruger issued a warning to pirates, saying the move meant there was now one less place for them to lurk.

"Anyone who thinks that they can hide behind the anonymity of the Internet to commit copyright infringement had better know that the law gives them no quarter," he said.

Sow, een erg sneeky actie van de BSA . Hier heb je de link naar het bericht, legaal geript van The Register. De BSA heeft een paar dagen terug hierover ook al een press-release over uitgebracht.

Een anonieme harry stuurde een link naar dit heftige supercooling artikeltje. "Wat een mafkees":

.... From this picture you can see the water cooler is connected to a 50 litre polystyrene water reservoir, the reason for this is the pure water cooler cannot cope with 300watts, it cannot hold 3 litres of water below 30 C while coping with that amount of heat. After some thought about possible solutions, the following was the cheapest . Use more water and therefore have that heat spread more , therefore lower water temperature. Inside the 50 litre chilli box I cycle 10 ice packs every 6 hrs. This maintains the water temperature below 5 C. which in turn maintains the Aluminum block at 10 C ! .

Elmbo schrijft: "Leuk verhaal dat ik tegenkwam bij Overclockers.com over de AquaStealth, een kant en klare water cooler waarmee je je peltier opstelling naar nieuwe hoogtes, of ik bedoel laagtes kan krijgen. En voor 200 piek compleet is het niet eens zo duur. ":

Check Overclockers.com voor de review.

leX schrijft: "Limit XS, waarvan eerder al bekend werd dat ze 0800 internet toegang gaan aanbieden, heeft net bekend gemaakt wat ze gaan kosten. Dit kreeg ik in mijn mailbox (van hun mailinglist):":

Inmiddels zijn de start tarieven van de Webgate 0800 dienst bekend:

Inschrijfkosten eenmalig Fl 25,- inclusief BTW
Maandelijkse kosten Fl 55,- inclusief BTW.

We zijn hiermee inderdaad een stuk duurder dan een andere provider die dezelfde dienst aanbiedt, echter proberen wij een kwalitatief betere dienst te bieden.

Voor elke 30 inbelpoorten is er 2 megabit per seconde bandbreedte naar het internet vastgesteld. Dit is naar onze ervaring meer dan voldoende om elke client een snelle verbinding te leveren.

Freax schrijft: "Geen idee of het nieuw nieuws is, maar op de ADSL site van de PTT staat dat ze eind november met meer info komen. Deelnemende ISP's en dergelijke":

Als eerste toepassing zet KPN Telecom in nauwe samenwerking met (Internet) Service Providers deze nieuwe dienst “Fast Internet” in de markt. Informatie over prijzen, deelnemende (Internet) Service Providers en een planning van de roll-out in Nederland zal eind november ook via deze site bekend worden gemaakt.

MaxxMark schrijft: "Casema Delft (aka Wanadoo) is eindelijk zo ver dat ze ook hier in Delft sneller internet aan kunnen bieden! Wij zijn (na Breda) de 2e gemeente die ook de extra (snellere) pakketten kunnen krijgen! "

Mischien wenst u meer service en meer mogelijkheden op de elektronische snelweg. Daarom heeft casema in een aantal gemeenten twee nieuwe producten geintroduceerd, die het beste uit internet halen: Cable Wanadoo Plus en Cable Wanadoo Premium.

Cable Wanadoo Plus:
<knip>
-Max 96 Kbits/s Downstream
-Max 32kbit/s Upstream
-4 email adressen
-20Mb Homepage
-in geheel nederland ook via telefoonlijn inbellen
<knip>

Cable Wanadoo PREMIUM
<knip>
-Max 160 Kbits/s Downstream
-Max 64kbit/s Upstream
-4 email adressen
-20mb Homepage
-in geheel nederland ook via telefoonlijn inbellen
<knip>

"Jammer dat je alleen een limiet hebt van 1500MB respectievelijk 3000Mb. Als je daar overheen gaat word je sneheid voor de rest van die maand naar 32kbit/s gebracht... Let op je bievenbus ":

Battlax stuurde me een link naar deze press release van AOpen, waarin de AX6C en AX6C-L moederborden worden aangekondigd. Beide zijn gebaseerd op de i820 chipset en hebben resp. 3 en 2 RIMM slots! Yup, wat Intel niet kan (3 RIMMetjes betrouwbaar naast elkaar aan de praat krijgen) doet AOpen gewoon wél . Verder hebben we voor de overklokkers een maximale bus van 160MHz:

SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading the race to build the better PC, AOpen America, the world's largest components manufacturer, today announced the launch of two new motherboards that integrate the latest technologies for today's serious computer users. The new motherboards, the AOpen AX6C and AOpen AX6C-L sport lightning fast front-side bus, 133MHz, a speedy 4X AGP port, RIMM memory support, and a unique AOpen expansion port that all combine to give professionals the ultimate foundation for their PC needs.

[...] Leveraging the Intel(R) 820 chipset and sharing key feature designs, both the AX6C and AX6C-L support 100MHz and 133MHz front-side bus, which are specifically designed to maximize the performance of the latest Intel Pentium II, Intel Pentium III and Intel Pentium III "Coppermine" processors. Gamers and other "overclockers" will appreciate the ability to ante up the front-side bus speed of the boards to support a maximum of 160MHz.

Further improving performance, the AX6C and AX6C-L support a maximum of 1GB Rambus DRAM with either 3 or 2 RIMM slots. The boards support PC600, PC700, and PC800 RIMM specifications, which position these boards on the cutting edge of memory technology. Additionally, both boards support 1X, 2X, and 4X AGP graphics. Multimedia features are enhanced with the addition of AC-97 2.1 audio on-board, and a full complement of serial, parallel, USB, game, speaker, mic and line ports provide instant expandability.

A unique board design from AOpen further adds to the boards' flexibility and expansion. The AX6C and AX6C-L include an additional slot -- the Audio/Modem Riser (AMR) -- that provides for future expandability by freeing the boards PCI slots. AOpen currently offers a V.90 56K modem that plugs into the new AMR slot, and plans to launch additional component solutions that take advantage of the AMR design, thus giving system builders and resellers even more options to customize PCs for their customers.

Investment protection features include: over current protection, CPU thermal protection, system voltage monitoring, CPU and housing fan monitoring and a resettable fuse that provides short circuit protection for the keyboard and USB devices. Corporate management features built into the boards include Wake-on-LAN, zero voltage Wake-on-Modem, Wake-on-Timer, and Wake-on-Keyboard/Mouse.

Lastly, both the AX6C and AX6C-L are Year 2000 compliant and include AOpen's award-winning 4MB, multi-lingual plug-and-play flash ROM BIOS. Pricing is not available at the time of announcement; however, both the AX6C and AX6C-L are expected to be available throughout North America within 60 days.

In een interview met Reuters heeft Opperhoofd Bill te kennen gegeven dat-ie zich niet door de DoJ in stukjes zal laten hakken :

Reuters is reporting that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, in a published interview, refused to rule out breaking up his company to settle a government antitrust suit, but a spokesman said today the company rejected a break-up.

Gates said that although he wants to settle, he would oppose any deal that would restrict the company's freedom to design Windows and assure its consistency. But in the interview with Time magazine he twice refused discussion about a solution that might involve breaking up the software giant.

``I can't go down the path of saying what the settlement would be,'' Gates replied when asked about breaking up Microsoft Corp (Nasdaq:MSFT - news). so that the Windows computer operating system would be made by a separate company.

Zie GA-Source voor het complete artikel.

3DHardware.net verblijdt ons met een review van de multi functionele Matrox Marvel G400-TV video-editing kaart. Hier een stukje over de hardware MJPEG encoder:

The feature that made the Marvel G200 shine was the hardware MJPEG encoder included on the Marvel G200 graphics card. Having a hardware solution instead of a software based MPEG/2 encoder means that there's much less CPU workload involved when capturing video and that a higher image quality can be obtained. As it proved to be a great success on the Marvel G200 Matrox decided to have the same feature on the Marvel G400-TV as well. The pros about hardware MJPEG are easy to see, it offers great quality, no drop in frames and low CPU requirements. This means that you can use the Marvel G400-TV on a slower CPU without having to sacrifise image quality and frame rates, something that isn't really possible with cards using software MPEG2 video capture (ATi All-In-Wonder 128, 3dfx Voodoo3 3500-TV) as they require a much more powerful CPU. The downside of hardware MJPEG is that the captured video is very large (albeit smaller than 100% uncompressed). This can prove to be a problem for those that do not have immense amounts of storage space and considering the fact that most of us don't have 60GB storage available many will have a few problems actually finding place to store the captured video. There are of course many different options to choose when capturing video, resolution, MJPEG compression rate and frame rate. Choosing a lower resolution and a high compression have save valuable space in exchange for a loss of image quality.

Sony en Palm Computing hebben aangekondigd te zullen samenwerken bij de ontwikkeling van een next generation palm platform, dat gebruik zal maken van Sony's Memory Stick technologie. De samenwerking betekend de zoveelste tegenslag voor het falende WinCE platform :

Sony said it will create a new line of handheld devices that go beyond the organizer functions associated with today's Palm devices. The new handhelds will have audio-visual capabilities and will focus on providing wireless communications, Sony said.

The deal between Sony and Palm Computing, a division of 3Com, comes on the same day that Microsoft announced plans to expand connectivity for handheld devices based on its scaled-down Windows CE operating system. That move is aimed at closing the still-wide gap between adoption of CE and Palm devices; Palm accounts for 75 percent of the market, according to research from International Data Corporation.

But the Sony deal is likely to help bolster Palm's position even more in the handheld arena.

[...] Sony and Palm will work together on a new version of the Palm operating system that enables Palm-based devices to take advantage of Sony's Memory Stick technology, as well as other unnamed Sony technologies.

Memory Stick is essentially a portable, re-recordable storage media that can save digital photos, data, music or other information. What makes the technology different from other portable storage devices is size: A single purple stick, which can store 8 to 64 megabytes of information, measures around 1.5 inches long and is about as thick as a piece of gum.

Fiets richting News.com voor het volledige nieuwsartikel.

Elsa heeft op de Comdex z'n Erazor X en Erazor X² GeForce kaarten aangekondigd. Laatst genoemd is voorzien van Double Data Rate SDRAM en zal vanaf december leverbaar zijn:

November 15, 1999 -- ELSA, Inc., a leader in computer graphics and communications solutions, today announced the arrival of the much-anticipated ERAZOR TM X graphics accelerator, and the new ERAZOR TM X² with Double Data Rate (DDR) memory. The ultimate graphics solutions for PC gamers, the ERAZOR X and ERAZOR X² utilize the GeFORCE 256 graphics processing unit (GPU) from NVIDIA Corporation to deliver previously inaccessible graphics functionality to the gaming community.

[...] The ERAZOR X is shipping this week, and will be available for purchase at online stores including Buy.com. MSRP for the ERAZOR X is $269. The ERAZOR X² is scheduled to start shipping in December. For more information about ERAZOR X, ERAZOR X², or ELSA 3D REVELATOR, please visit ELSA's web site at http://www.elsa.com/AMERICA, or call 1-800-272-ELSA.

Gamefan bericht dat Microsoft zeer waarschijnlijk geen X-Box aankondiging zal geven op de Comdex:

Looks like Microsoft may not be as confident about their new ‘X-Box’ as we all originally thought. Comdex has started and the mysterious X Box – so far - has been a no-show. While the introduction of the next-gen system has not been completely ruled out, a developer that is currently working on the system was told not to show or officially state any involvement with the set-top box until further notice.

According to this developer, Microsoft wants to hold off on the unveiling of the X Box for a private showing of sorts, sometime in the New Year. We'll keep you posted if any news surfaces, but based on early word from the show floor, it looks like a no-show for the X Box…

EuroGamer heeft een artikeltje gepost waarin het z'n twijfels legt bij de strategie die 3dfx heeft gekozen met de gisteren aangekondigde Voodoo4 en Voodoo5 kaarten. Laat ik maar met de conclusie beginnen, want die vond ik wel grappig:

3dfx started the whole 3D graphics revolution back in 1995 with the original Voodoo Graphics chipset, but they seem to have lost the plot somewhere along the line.

Their new graphics cards were supposed to have been available in the autumn, but having been pushed back almost six months they are now revealed to be yet another rehash of the same four year old Voodoo design.

As one poster over at Voodoo Extreme commented, "this thing sounds like a Voodoo 3 SLI held together with a bunch of duct tape and bandaids".

From the evidence so far he seems to be right.

De argumenten achter deze redenering lees je hier.

GamePC heeft een artikeltje neer geplant met het videokaarten nieuws dat zei op de eerste dag van de Comdex bij elkaar wisten te rapen. Bovenaan in het lijstje staat uiteraard de 3dfx VSA-100 (Voodoo Scalable Architecture), die gebruikt zullen worden in de Voodoo4 en Voodoo5:

Throughout his presentation, Sellers stressed the importance of fill rate. Citing that Q3 at 1600x1200x32 would require about 1.2 gigapixels per second of throughput to maintain 60 frames per second. He also agreed that hardware T&L (transformation and lighting - found on upcoming S3 and the current NVIDIA GeForce chip) is the way of the future. Sellers stated, "3dfx will have HW T&L when it matters in the market." The T-buffer features were alse presented again. Full screen spacial and temporal anti-aliasing (getting rid of the jaggies and motion blur) along with soft shadowing and field of depth effects are designed to make 3D graphics more like the cinematic effects we've come to expect from the like of ILM. Unfortunately, no new pictures were available of these effects. The FSAA effects of the T-buffer will be fully supported out of the box. No software optimizations will be needed.

Verder ook nog wat info over ATi, nVidia en Quantum3D. Lees 't hier.

Kryotech gaat als eerste met een commercieel beschikbaar systeem door de 1GHz barrière! Hier wat stof uit de press release:

With the announcement today of its new SuperG™ system, KryoTech becomes the first company in the world to offer a commercially available PC system that breaks the one gigahertz barrier. One gigahertz (1,000,000,000 cycles per second) refers to the speed of the system's processor. To achieve this speed, KryoTech has used its patented cooling system to "thermally accelerate" an AMD AthlonÔ processor.

KryoTech will be displaying the SuperG this week at the South Carolina Department of Commerce technology initiative exhibit (Booth #L1963) during COMDEX FALL '99 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The SuperG will be formally unveiled on Tuesday evening at the Team SC reception to be hosted by South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges. The reception will be held at the Desert Inn starting at 6:00pm.

"Reaching 1 GHz in computing is like breaking the sound barrier in aeronautics. It not only means that a major milestone has been achieved, but it also changes your basis of comparison. Much like 'Mach' has become the measure of supersonic speed, computer processor speed can now be thought of in units of G's instead of MHz's, hence our branding the product the 'SuperG'," said Al Quick, KryoTech's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Zie Tom's review voor benchmarks.

GamePC heeft een review van de 21" Mitsubishi 2020u kijkdoos neer gemikt. 0,25mm dot pitch, 1800x1440 maximale res bij een refresh rate van 80Hz: klinkt allemaal erg :

To say the least, the screen picture on the 2020u is nothing short of beautiful, rivaling the near-perfect image quality of Sony Trinitron-based monitors. Since it is a "tron"-based tube, there are the two classic gray lines 1/3 and 2/3 down the monitor (if you've seen a Sony Trinitron monitor, you know what I'm talking about). These are just incredibly faint lines that you won't notice 90% of the time, and doesn't detract from the overall quality of the monitor. At 1280x1024, the monitor was absolutely perfect, picture wise, and at 1600x1200, the picture was almost as good, but very faint ghosting was starting to appear. Of course, in gaming you won't notice the difference, but for graphics work and word processing and what not, there's a possibility you'll notice. We've found the picture on the monitor at high resolutions to be one of the best, even the top of the line Sony monitors still have faint ghosting at resolutions higher than 1600x1200. Even using our favorite Solid BNC cabling still produces these effects, just to a lesser degree.

De website van Transmeta is ge-update met iets minder mistige info dan het regeltje "his web page is not here yet! ...but it is Y2K compliant. ..." dat er eerst stond. In de source van de pagina ligt een geheime message verborgen:

Yes, there is a secret message, and this is it: Transmeta's policy has been to remain silent about its plans until it had something to demonstrate to the world. On January 19th, 2000, Transmeta is going to announce and demonstrate what Crusoe processors can do. Simultaneously, all of the details will go up on this Web site for everyone on the Internet to see. Crusoe will be cool hardware and software for mobile applications. Crusoe will be unconventional, which is why we wanted to let you know in advance to come look at the entire Web site in January, so that you can get the full story and have access to all of the real details as soon as they are available.

'Crusoe' gaat het dingetje dus heten en de proc zal, zoals eerder door Redherring naar buiten gebracht, gericht worden op de markt voor portable internet appliances.

Het engelse bedrijf Printable Field Emitters Ltd. heeft een field-emission display gedemonstreerd met 32x32px resolutie. Met behulp van deze technologie moet het in de toekomst mogelijk worden om grote flat panel displays tegen relatief lage prijzen te produceren:

Printable Field Emitters Ltd., a U.K. startup, has produced a 32 x 32-pixel monochrome prototype display based on its patented ink-printable broad-area field-emitter technology. The company said its technology will allow large-area flat-panel displays to be produced at lower cost than plasma-display panels or alternative field-emission displays (FEDs).

The company made its debut in January of this year with a three-pixel tricolor demonstration of its technology and promised to move on to larger prototypes.

"Our small team has produced this demonstration device three months ahead of schedule, 20 percent under budget and with four times the number of pixels originally planned," said Andy Harding, chief executive officer of Printable Field Emitters (PFE). "This demonstrates the simplicity of the technology."

Check EETimes voor meer info over deze materie. Tevens staat in de c't van deze maand staat een artikel over FED's.

Mitsubishi heeft een lekkere dikke 22-incher met DiamandTron beeldkanon aangekondigd. Wat te denken van een 0,24mm dot pitch, een maximale resolutie van 2047x1536px en maximale horizontale frequentie van 121KHz ? Hier een paar bytes uit de press release:

Mitsubishi Display Products, creator of the industry's broadest line of award-winning monitors and displays, Monday announced the Diamond Pro 2040u.

With a constant .24mm dot pitch, this is the first of Mitsubishi's flat-screen CRTs to include uni-pitch technology. The 22-inch screen also allows for a higher dot count than competitive monitors with a maximum resolution of 2048x1536, as the full 20-inch DVI allows for more surface phosphor.

The $1,349 Diamond Pro 2040u introduces improvements to the patented Natural Flat technology that has already captured many industry awards for delivering the first, undistorted, natural looking images on a CRT.

[...] The new Diamond Pro 2040u has a 30-121 kHz horizontal scanning range, and 240 MHz video clock frequency. On-screen display (OSD) controls allow easy manipulation of over 20 separate settings, including brightness, contrast, positioning, geometry, purity and convergence.

The Diamond Pro 2040u meets TCO 99 and MPR-II emissions, EPA Energy Star, DPMS and NUTEK power management standards and is DDC compliant for Plug & Play. Perfect for any application or work environment, the 2040u is compatible with IBM, Apple Macintosh, Power Macintosh, Windows 98, and high-resolution third-party graphics standards.

Tyan heeft twee nieuwe op de i840 Carmel chipset gebaseerde server plankjes aangekondigd. De Tyan Thunder 2000 heeft 4 RIMM slots en een dual Rambus interface, goed voor 3,2Gb/sec. De Thunder 2400 doet het met normaal SDRAM, maar heeft wel een onboard Ultra SCSI 2 controller. Hier wat blije pret uit de press release:

Tyan Computer today announced two new motherboards targeted at the workstation, server and performance PC marketplace. Based on the Intel i840 chipset (Carmel), the Thunder 2000 (part number S2232) employs RAMBUS memory technology while the Thunder 2400 (part number S2257) uses existing SDRAM memory technology. Both system boards feature support for 133MHz, single or dual Pentium III slot 1processors, including the recently announced 733 MHz Coppermine CPUs. In addition both support 64bit/66MHz PCI, AGP4x and AGP Pro add-in cards.

Thunder 2000

The Thunder 2000 board combines RAMBUS technology (4 RIMM connectors) along with the i840's dual memory channel architecture to deliver unprecedented 3.2GB/s memory bandwidth (vs. the 800MB/s bandwidth of older iBX designs). Two 64 bit/66 MHz PCI slots deliver 512MB/s on the PCI channel (vs. 133MB/s in previous generations). Both of these features make the S2257 board the product of choice for applications demanding pure performance. The S2232 also integrates a single channel Ultra2 SCSI controller (SYM53C895) and an integrated 10/100 LAN controller (i82C559) as manufacturing options.

Thunder 2400

The Thunder 2400 uses readily available SDRAM technology and combines it with the i840 chipset to deliver a compelling platform for servers and workstations. A dual channel Ultra2 controller (SYM53C896) comes standard. Manufacturing options include an upgrade to Ultra3 SCSI and an integrated 10/100 LAN controller (i82C559). Two 64 bit/66MHz PCI slots are also provided.

[...] Common features of both products include: support for single or dual slot 1 Pentium III processors at 133MHz, extended ATX form factor, AGP 4x support, 64bit/66MHz PCI support (seven total useable I/O slots), integrated soft Audio and integrated hardware monitoring. Samples are available now to key OEMs and System integrators. OEM pricing ranges from $320 to $500 depending on volume and configuration.

Yup, een watergekoelde Coppermine op 1096MHz, bij een busspeed van 157MHz en een voltage van 1,75V. Hier de koek van Vision Online:

Hide has overclocked his PIII 700 SL3SY to 1096Mhz. Running at a mere 1.75V with a FSB Speed of 157Mhz, he is using a water-cooled heatsink with a modified Asus P2B-F. He has done some benchmarks too.

Op deze pagina vind je meer info.

Idéfix schrijft: "Wilde net naar bed gaan, kreeg ik dit emailtje in m'n postbus gegooid...":

Moo!

On behalf of distributed.net, I am pleased to announce that we have completed the development and testing phases of CSC (CS-Cipher Challenge). We are ready for a wide-scale release, deployment, and launch. On November 17th at 00:00GMT, we will release the latest RC5/DES/CSC clients (dnetc446) and proxies (v311). Although we are working towards ports for every platform, they will not all be ready immediately. Users can visit the CSC web page for more information at the contest start.

CSC is an encryption challenge that is organized by CS Communications and Systems. It was designed to last one year, beginning March 17, 1999. S Communications and Systems wishes to demonstrate how weak a 56-bit key is against brute force attacks. Accordingly, distributed.net has taken on the challenge.

A 10,000 Euro prize is being offered to the winner. As usual, distributed.net plans to distribute the money in our 60/20/20 method. 60% of the prize goes to the most popular non-profit organization. 20% goes to the winner (or if the winner is on a team, 10% to the winner, and 10% to the team the winner is on), and 20% goes to distributed.net to cover expenses and further development.

The new clients will be at http://www.distributed.net/csc/clients.html so please download the latest release when they're released, and start cracking CSC. We can wrap this project up in no time at all, as long as we work together.

Snuffel schrijft: "Wederom Virus nieuws, dit keer betreft het 't WM97/ASTIA-Y virus. Nog niet in het wild te verkrijgen, maar dat zal ongetwijfeld niet lang meer duren....":

Het nieuwe macrovirus WM97/Astia-Y infecteert niet alleen de normal.dot template waarmee u normaal gesproken elke nieuwe Word-sessie opent, maar ook elk document dat wordt geopend of gemaakt. Zelfs als u de standaard wegneemt om de template virusvrij te maken, dan zal het virus toch doorgaan met het infecteren van uw systeem. Het is vrij uniek en creeert een andere template (SNrlm.dot en SNRML.SRC) die het in de opstartfolder van MS Office 97 zet. Het gevolg is dat het virus steeds zal terugkomen, ook al hebt u het verwijderd. Het komt er dus op aan beide dot-bestanden te verwijderen. Daar komt nog eens bij dat het virus het waarschuwingssysteem van Office op een laag pitje zet. Hierdoor hebben ook andere virussen een kans om toe te slaan. Daarnaast kunnen bepaalde handelingen niet meer worden uitgevoerd. Het virus is nog niet "in het wild" gesignaleerd.

Een anonieme harry stuurde een link naar dit artikel van Redherring.com, over de mysterieuze Transmeta processor. Volgens Redherring gaat de wonder processor gebruikt worden voor Linux driven intenet toepassingen, zoals handhelds:

Redherring.com sources say the company is making a microprocessor for Internet appliances running the Linux operating system. It's a huge undertaking. With Transmeta's chip technology -- which translates software written for Intel's (Nasdaq: INTC) x86 architecture to Transmeta's native P95 architecture -- a handheld device would be able to run Windows CE applications without using Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) OS or Intel's chips. (For an in-depth look at Transmeta's technology, based on its patent filings, see Thursday's story.)

Transmeta executives are mulling whether Linus Torvalds, the company's pitchman, should flash a Transmeta-powered Web device as a proof of concept when he delivers his keynote speech at Comdex on Monday evening, a former hardware designer for Transmeta says. The company has not planned to make a detailed announcement about its vision and technology until mid-January.

biwan@multiweb.nl" rel="external">Obiwan schrijft: "Er is al tijd baas boven baas... maarr dit is toch echt wat overdreven":

Blijkbaar is die gek van vorige maand nu eindelijk klaar met het bouwen van zijn koelmuur :

Red Fox stuurde deze interessante info uit de nl.internet.providers nieuwsgroep: "Limit is ook van plan Internet diensten aan te gaan bieden via een 0800 nummer, in navolging van Superweb. Limit zelf schreef:":

Limit Internet is inmiddels in een vergevorderd stadium om een 0800 inbeldienst aan te bieden in Nederland. Met realisatie van dit initiatief zou Limit de tweede 0800 inbeldienst aanbieder in Nederland worden.

Dit jaar verwacht Limit systeembeheer klaar te zijn met de laatste testen van het nieuwe netwerk, en begin volgend jaar komt Limit met een 0800 inbeldienst. Deze dienst is inclusief een POP3 E-mail account en de mogelijkheid om gebruik te maken van IRC en online games. Hiermee onderscheidt Limit zich van zijn concurrent, die deze mogelijkheden nog niet volledig aanbiedt.

Ook zal er voldoende bandbreedte en inbelpoorten beschikbaar komen, echter zullen de abonnementskosten iets hoger uitvallen dan die van de huidige 0800 provider.

Wilt u op de hoogte blijven van de recente ontwikkelingen op dit gebied, dan kunt u een E-mail sturen naar webgate@limit.nl

Stuktjes eruit geviste tekst:

- Geschatte prijzen:
Dit is nog niet officieel bekend, maar ik heb een tarief gehoord tussen de Fl 50,- en Fl 60,-. per maand.

- Garantie voor goed functioneren:
Zover dat mogelijk is, ja. Op de netwerk connectiviteit zit reeds een garantie voor virtuele server en vaste server clienten. Deze garantie geldt echter niet voor inbeldiensten, maar ik kan je verzekeren dat we pas na uitvoerige testen de dienst commercieel aan gaan bieden.

- beschikbaarheid:
Begin volgend jaar, dit klinkt 'vaag' maar we willen eerst zeker stellen dat de kwaliteit optimaal is.

- voorproefje van de (nieuwe) site: http://localxs.limit.nl

- Statisch ip?:
Nee, zover ik weet niet. wel heeft iedere dial-in een IP adres dat net zoals een 'normale' inbelpool uniek is voor het Internet.

AMD heeft een press release over z'n EasyNow! platform design de deur uit gedaan.

AMD today introduced the AMD EasyNow!™ platform design, the blueprint for innovative, full-featured PCs aimed to enhance the overall end user computing experience and expand the PC user base. The AMD EasyNow! platform design focuses on making PCs easier to set up, easier to use and easier to upgrade. The platform design includes a novel, visually appealing PC enclosure.

The AMD EasyNow! platform design is the industry's first computing platform to fully comply with the widely endorsed Easy PC Initiative hardware guidelines. The Easy PC Initiative's hardware guidelines specify simplifying startup, reducing the types of connectors and leveraging new technology standards. Initial systems based on the AMD EasyNow! platform design are planned to be available later this month in the direct and retail channels.

"We believe that easy-to-use and stylish PCs based on the AMD EasyNow! platform design will help expand the market for personal computers," said Dana Krelle, vice president of Marketing for AMD's Computation Products Group. "PCs based on the initial AMD EasyNow! platform design are perfect for value-minded buyers looking for an easy-to-use PC capable of running the most popular applications available for the Microsoft Windows® operating system."

Meer optimistisch geblaat over deze pret PC lees je hier.

Intel heeft de specs van z'n Vancouver en Cape Cod i820 planken gepost. De VC820 wordt geleverd met 2 RIMM slots, de CC820 moet het doen met de oude vertrouwde SDRAM DIMMs .

VC820 press release:

The Intel® Desktop Board VC820 features the new Intel® 820 chipset, offering system integrators the latest in PC technology, while enabling new and exciting performance capabilities. The Desktop Board VC820 supports the latest Intel® Pentium® III processors at 133-MHz system bus. In addition, it supports RDRAM* memory technology, which delivers up to 2X the bandwidth of SDRAM. The Desktop Board VC820 is the leading-edge, performance platform solution for system integrators who want to provide their customers the latest in PC technology.

Delivering New Performance Features

The Desktop Board VC820 with the new Intel 820 chipset supports exciting new technologies, including a 133-MHz system bus, RDRAM memory, AGP 4X, Ultra ATA/66, and the Instantly Available PC power management mode. The combination of these features with the Intel Pentium III processor enables exciting system designs. The friendly ATX form-factor, five PCI slots, Audio/Modem Riser (AMR) connector and AGP connector give system integrators a reliable, stable and flexible platform. The Desktop Board VC820 also offers integrated Creative Labs* Sound Blaster* AudioPCI 128. [break] CC820 press release: [/break] The Intel® Desktop Board CC820 features the new Intel® 820 chipset, offering system integrators the latest in PC technology, while enabling new and exciting performance capabilities. The Desktop Board CC820 supports the latest Intel® Pentium® III processors at 133-MHz system bus and SDRAM memory only. This allows integrators to capture many performance benefits of the Intel 820 chipset through proven SDRAM memory technology. In addition, the Desktop Board CC820 delivers enhanced system performance for the demanding system and Internet applications of today and tomorrow.

Upgrade to the Latest in Desktop PC Technology

The Desktop Board CC820 features the new Intel 820 chipset, which combines support for leading-edge technologies - including a 133-MHz system bus, AGP 4X, Instantly Available PC and Ultra ATA/66 - with the benefits of the Intel Pentium III processor to deliver a performance system solution. The friendly ATX design, five PCI slots, Audio/Modem Riser (AMR) connector and AGP connector give system integrators a stable and flexible platform. The Desktop Board CC820 also offers optional integrated Creative Labs* Sound Blaster* AudioPCI 128. System integrators benefit from Intel's extensive compatibility and validation testing that helps ensure consistent and reliable performance.

Intel heeft de eerste Itanium testsystemen aan ontwikkelaars geleverd, zo bericht The Register. Opvallend is de vermogens opname van deze broodrooster, die bedraagd maar liefst 140Watt (holy cow, hoe gaan we dan koelen!?):

The first samples of Intel Merced silicon have started to reach technologists and prototype IA-64 based PC systems are currently in the labs.

According to sources close to Intel's plans, the company has managed to clock the Merced-Itanic to respectable and high clock speeds, but currently heat dissipation and power consumption are issues for manufacturers.

Two way systems are said to be delivering clock speeds of 1000MHz each already, but each processor is demanding 140 watts of electricity, said a source. The current goal of engineers at Intel is to bring that level of juice down very sharply indeed. At power consumption like this, you could quite happily toast your waffles for breakfast.

Idiot van Ace's Hardware heeft wat handige info gepost over de i840 en i820 data sheets die inmiddels op de Intel site staan:

Thanks to plethora for inform me that I840 and I820 datasheets are up on Intel's site. The other interesting thing is that Intel changed the Coppermine 677 and 733 benchmarks from i840 platform to i820 now. The biggest thing one can see is that SPECFP95 scores dropped......... the performance went down from 30.4 to 28.1on the coppermine 733 by using i820 instead of i840. For reference i saved both Intel's i840 html and PDF locally since intel doesn't link to to them anymore i have a feeling they are going to yank it for fun. Although SPECINT95 did went up from 35.6 to 35.7 on i820, and highend winstone also went up from 39.8 to 41.1.

Now going to i840's datasheet one can see that it have a 8 deep in-order que for mmeory requests as opposed to i820's 6. Although Intel i820 is considerablely cheaper to package at 324 pin compared to BX's 492pin or i840's 544pin. (the fewer pins the cheaper the computers can be made) The other measures to save pin cost for i820 include support for only 32bit addressing (no 36bit here) and support only single CPU platforms. i840 also allows better PCI performance by offering a high speed Hub interface with twice the bandwidth of the ones found on a i810 or i820. For a local copy of i840 performance PDF, or html. Also check out the designer's guide for how low the noises have to be and trace requirements on i820 and i840.

Volgens CTech Taiwan zullen er van de 1,5 miljoen Athlon's die AMD dit jaar hoopt te produceren zo'n 100.000 exemplaren zonder moeder komen te zitten wegens een tekort aan slot-A mobo's . KH Yeap van Ace's Hardware heeft een engelstalige samenvatting van dit taiwanese nieuwsartikel:

According to CTech Taiwan , AMD will ship a total of 1.5 million K7s by the end of 1999, and about 100,000 of these K7s may be "homeless" due to the shortage of Slot-A motherboards. Ctech made an estimation and concluded that out of the 1.5 million K7s, about 1 million will end up in DIY market and for system integrators that are not Tier One OEMs like Compaq or IBM. Asus is reportedly the biggest Slot-A motherboard shippers to date. Combining Slot-A motherboard shipments from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and FIC, there will be about 900,000 Slot-A motherboards out in the market by the end of the year, thus leaving about 100,000 K7s "homeless". Even though GVC and Biostar also make Slot-A motherboards, the quantity they ship is very small, and mostly for OEMs. AMD obviously is aware of this issue, and has alledgedly made bold promise of buying out the motherboards if a motherboard maker makes but fails to sell its Slot-A motherboards.

Ik wil er wel eentje adopteren .

Opperhoofd Bill heeft op de Comdex in Las Vegas zijn Web Companion internet doosje aangekondigd. Het apparaat heeft het formaat van een boek en draait op Windoos CE. De kist zal o.a. geproduceerd worden door ons eigen Philips (wedden dat-ie kapot gaat ):

The machine, which is expected to cost less than $200 and be available in the second half of next year, is Microsoft's spin on the network computer concept of years past. That idea, championed by Larry Ellison--chief executive of Oracle and archrival of Gates--called for a "dumb" terminal with limited functions for Internet use at an affordable price.

To its peril, the idea of a network computer was largely thought to be ahead of its time. Today, at least some analysts believe that Microsoft will find a niche with its Web Companion because the market and Internet usage has changed vastly.

Verder sprak Bill over Windows 2000 en Office Online. Meer daarover lees je bij News.com.

De Hubble telescoop blijkt zichzelf uitgeschakeld te hebben, zo bericht BBC News. De Nasa stuurt binnenkort een paar mannetjes 'naar boven' om het ding weer aan te kachelen :

The Hubble Space Telescope has shut itself down preventing astronomers from making any observations of the Universe.

It is a safety precaution triggered by the failure of another of the space observatory's gyroscopes. Hubble has six gyros onboard, half of which must be operational to point the observatory accurately.

But one by one, three have failed and there have been indications for some months now that a fourth gyro would also cease working. This is apparently what happened on Saturday.

Fortunately, Hubble's third service and repair mission is just weeks away. Nasa has put together a very experienced crew, including the British born Mir veteran Michael Foale, who are due in orbit in early December to sort out all of Hubble's problems.