Get your shiny new ESP machine

Subject: General Tech | April 5, 2006 - 11:53 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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CNet has posted a story on an MIT project that has designed a device to read minds.  While it may not give away exactly what someone is thinking, it will tell their mood with surprising accuracy.  Read about it so that you can recognize if someone is using it the next time you sit down to play poker.

Apple to Let Windows XP Applications Run on Mac OS

Subject: General Tech | April 5, 2006 - 10:08 AM | Jonathan Hung
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In what can be their biggest strategic maneuver since switching to Intel CPUs, Apple Computer has just announced it will allow users of their Macintosh computers using Intel chips run Windows XP software.

The software is called "Bootcamp" and is availble for download now as a trial. Bootcamp will also be available in Mac OS 10.5 "Leopard" (I'm waiting for "Puma" myself...).

Those of us who have been keeping an eye on Mactels this announcement is not a big surprise as videos of Windows XP running on these computers have been available for some time already.

The difference a BIOS can make

Subject: General Tech | April 4, 2006 - 04:17 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Overclockers Online reviewed the ECS K1A MVP before it was available, and were not impressed with the overclocking potential.  Now that the board has been through a few BIOS revisions, they revisit the board to see what effect a more mature BIOS will have.

Intel, Red Hat Launch Global Solution Acceleration Program

Subject: General Tech | April 4, 2006 - 02:49 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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LINUXWORLD, Boston, April 4, 2006 —
Intel Corporation and Red Hat (NASDAQ: RHAT), the world's leading
provider of open source to the enterprise, today announced the creation
of a global program to help customers plan for, accelerate and optimize
their deployments of Linux solutions. The program will be the first of
its kind for Linux solutions development, initially focused on
developing and disseminating tools for virtualization of enterprise
computing.

Intel First With 65nm NOR Flash Memory Chips

Subject: General Tech | April 4, 2006 - 02:47 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 4, 2006 —
Intel Corporation is the first to sample NOR multi-level cell flash
memory chips at 1-gigabit density using its advanced 65-nanometer (nm)
process technology. Intel's NOR Flash memory chips are used in devices
such as cell phones to manage critical phone operations, handle
Personal Information Management data and to store photos, music and
videos.

Microsoft and AMD, conspiring together?

Subject: General Tech | April 4, 2006 - 12:04 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Steve Balmer and Mark Hurd met with AMD after the results of an AMD survey revealed a growing concern with power hungry servers and PCs.  Head to The Inquirer to find out more about the survey and the event.

WD Ships Highest Capacity, Highest Reliability Enterprise-class SATA Hard Drive

Subject: General Tech | April 4, 2006 - 11:45 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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LAKE FOREST, Calif. Apr. 4, 2006 Addressing a growing enterprise market for high capacity, highly reliable storage, Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) today announced it is now shipping its WD RE2 (RAID Edition) 500 GB SATA hard drives. With 3.0 Gb/s data transfer rate, WD RE2 hard drives feature Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and 16 MB cache for improved performance in multi-user, random I/O environments.

Intel Capital, PIPEX Create Broadband Wireless Company In The UK

Subject: General Tech | April 3, 2006 - 04:58 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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LONDON, April 3, 2006 — Intel Capital, Intel's venture capital investment organization, and PIPEX Communications PLC, a major United Kingdom-based telecommunications provider, announced today that they have jointly formed PIPEX Wireless, a wireless operator which will provide broadband services in major metropolitan areas.

We used to call a 12 inch IBM 729 reel portable ...

Subject: General Tech | April 3, 2006 - 12:01 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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...  the kids these days have no idea how easy they have it.  The Tech Zone explores the history of portable data, from the floppies that you were amazed could fit 1.44 Mbs of data to the USB flash and HDD based drives of today.  Read through it and some of the jokes old sysadmins crack might start making more sense.

"History of secondary storage is quiet interesting, as it has seen the use of papers to silicon

to optical medium.

Intel Launches 'Discover The PC' Initiative

Subject: General Tech | April 3, 2006 - 11:45 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 30, 2006 — Intel Corporation today announced the 'Discover the PC' initiative to make the benefits of PC technology more broadly available to people in developing nations. The initiative focuses on delivering products and technologies that are specifically designed to meet the unique needs of people in developing countries.

Game Developers Conference - End movie and final credits

Subject: General Tech | March 31, 2006 - 12:09 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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ExtremeTech stuck around the GDC 2006 until the very end, to tell you about all the really cool things they saw, and you missed becuase you couldn't take a week off to go game in San Fran.  Prepare to be jealous, as there were quite a lot revealed there.

"This year's Game Developers Conference had its share of controversy, terrific sessions,

competing parties and chance interactions.

When gaming goes to your head

Subject: General Tech | March 30, 2006 - 06:28 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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TECHGAGE has let the games get to their head.  After spending way too much time in the simulated cockpit of a Lear jet, they purchase the new NaturalPoint TrackIR 4:PRO, and started looking out the side windows while flying to Hawaii.  The TrackIR tracks your head movements and translates it to the computer screen.  You get to change the direction you are looking, without changing your mouse aim, and while it isn't CounterStrike compatible yet, be assured there are many people working on making it so.

"The

Find out what DSP really does

Subject: General Tech | March 30, 2006 - 03:13 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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You have probably seen the term Digital Signal Processing before, but you may not know what it is.  To add to the confusion, it is an often misused term, but Digital Grabber will set you straight on this process of making analog sound better on digital setups.

"It happens that many people have no idea what Digital Signal Processing means, although they

hear more and more often these words, today.

Why not go for a cool 100,000 cores

Subject: General Tech | March 30, 2006 - 11:44 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Cray is working on the first computer to break the petaflop boundary, and what they are putting together to do that is just amazing.  Read more about the stats of this machine at The Inquirer.

"IT LOOKS LIKE Cray is starting to come back a bit, this time with a box made from 24,000 quad

core 2.6GHz Opterons.

That said, it is aiming at 187 or 400TB of memory, claimed to be cost related, but I think it

gets a volume discount after 100TB. It is also putting 11 petabytes of disk space on the beast.

Another try at wearable computing

Subject: General Tech | March 29, 2006 - 11:54 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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CoolTechZone spotted a concept wrist computer from Eurotech.  At 200 grams, and sporting a 72x55 mm TFT screen, it certainly won't be mistaken for an oversized watch, but is it something you want to wear on your wrist?

'Remember the cartoon Futurama, and how Leela always sported a wrist computer/sensor device? Now,

would you believe me if I told you such a machine was in the works? Well, believe it or not, it

does exist.

Get a keyboard on your keyboard

Subject: General Tech | March 28, 2006 - 06:21 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Hardware Zone has a preview of a very musical keyboard, the Creative Prodikey PC-MIDI.  Why sit at your computer learning to type, when you can be learining to play the piano?

"The Prodiky PC-MIDI is an innovative device that combines keyboard with piano keys. With it,

anyone can work and learn how to play a piano in front of the computer without having to buy

separate input devices.

Intel Establishes $50 Million Venture Capital Fund For Brazil

Subject: General Tech | March 28, 2006 - 01:00 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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SAO PAULO, Brazil, March 28, 2006 — Recognizing Brazil's position as South America's largest economy and its increasing importance as a technology leader, Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel Corporation, has created a US$50 million venture capital fund to promote technology growth in Brazil.

'Intel Capital's investments will help stimulate technological innovation and growth of Brazil's rapidly developing entrepreneurial community,' said Intel Corporation CEO

Molecular Circuitry: Coming soon?

Subject: General Tech | March 27, 2006 - 12:04 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Researchers in the US have built the first logic circuit on a molecular scale (18 µm) according to this story on nanotechweb.  This seems to reinforce the idea that circuits will not always be etched out of existing material, but grown one molecule at a time.  Small Form Factor indeed!

Researchers at IBM, the University of Florida and Columbia University, all in the US, have

created a logic circuit on a single-walled carbon nanotube.