$450 Core 2 Quad next year???
At least the price is nice...but coding/programming still needs to catch up.

A month ago Intel launched the world first Quad Core for high-end users. Most of users and perhaps you may still wait for a reasonable price to upgrade your computer. Good news is that Intel has just announced its releasing schedule for Core 2 Quad Q6400, the cheapest Quad Core we know. Since according to our report on the upcoming Intel’s price slash, Core 2 Quad Q6600 will have a new price at $531 (previously $851), Core 2 Quad Q6400 is most likely has a price lower than $450 when it is released into market in Q3 2007, implying Quad Core is no longer be high end only.

Core 2 Quad Q6400 remains in Kentsfield core like others released models. Standards for this model include: 65nm manufacturing process, LGA 775 package, clock speed at 2.13Ghz, 1066MHz FSB, and 4MB x 2 L2 Cache. Core 2 Quad Q6400 also support for Intel ViiV, VT, EIST, 64 and Execute Disable Bit. Combining the performance provided and the low price, this would be a great rival for AMD’s AM2+ processors.

In addition, Intel’s native Quad Core, codenamed Yorkfield, is scheduled to release in the second half of 2007. The native Quad Core will introduce a 6MB L2 Shaded Cache, lower the latency between the cores. Besides, its FSB has upgraded to 1333MHz and will be fabricated in 45nm process.

At the end of this year, Intel internally estimated its shipment of Quad Core will not exceed 1%, yet this figure will step up; 5% after the launch of Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 in Q1 2007 and further increase to 8% after the launch of Core 2 Quad Q6400 in Q3 2007.


Read all about it here courtesy of HKEPC.com

-Eric

Zune doesn't shake iPods market dominance
Why does this not surprise me?...

By Troy Wolverton

Mercury News

Microsoft's Zune had a decent debut last month, but Apple Computer's iPods continued to dominate the MP3 market, according to new data from market research firm NPD Group released this week.

Although Microsoft didn't release the Zune until more than halfway through November, the company was the second-leading manufacturer of hard disk drive-based media players, capturing 9 percent of the U.S. retail market, according to NPD. Including both flash memory and hard disk drive players, Microsoft came in fourth, with 1.9 percent of the market.

The company's much-hyped entree into the MP3 player market appeared to have little affect on industry leader Apple. Although Apple's share of the hard drive market fell to 82.7 percent from 86.8 percent a year ago, its share of the overall market came in at 62.2 percent, essentially even with the 63 percent it posted a year ago.

SanDisk was No. 2 with 18.4 percent of the overall market, up from 17.5 percent last year.

Revamped versions of the flash-based iPod nano and iPod shuffle boosted Apple's overall results. Sales of the shuffle doubled year over year in November, while those of the nano grew 37 percent.

``All in all, that's a pretty good performance,'' said Stephen Baker, an analyst with Reston, Va.-based NPD.

Apple has dominated sales of MP3 players almost since it entered the market five years ago. In contrast, there are already questions about how sustainable Microsoft's Zune sales will be. NPD's own weekly data had Microsoft falling from the No. 2 vendor of MP3 players in its first week to No. 5 in its second week.

On Amazon.com, one of the leading vendors of electronics products online, the Zune has become a distant also-ran behind the iPod and other MP3 players. The black Zune -- the top selling model -- was recently ranked No. 47 among the bestselling electronics products on Amazon. At the same time Apple's black 30GB iPod -- the Zune's direct competitor -- was ranked No. 1.

The Zune even trailed Creative's rival 30GB Zen Vision, which was ranked No. 27.

Read all about it here courtesy of MercuryNews.com

-Eric

Product support for Win2K and other M$ products draws to a close
M$ starts the push to switch to Vista...

Companies that rely on Windows 2000 face tough, end-of-lifecycle choices as Microsoft pushes upgrades to Windows Vista, 2003, and Longhorn Server.

By Brian Livingston, InformationWeek
Dec. 15, 2006
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196700071

With the recent release of Microsoft's newest potential cash cows, Windows Vista and Office 2007, the company is expecting a wave of upgrades from users seeking the latest functionality. But what if you're not looking for new bells and whistles? What if you want to keep your old operating systems, such as Windows 2000, running as long as possible?

Microsoft isn't making it easy for you. Office 2007 and the software for the company's much-hyped Zune music player won't install on Windows 2000. As other new products emerge from Microsoft in 2007 and beyond, more and more of them are likely to leave Windows 2000 out of the party.

Which of these installation restrictions are caused by a real lack of capabilities in Windows 2000, however? Are any of them merely a "squeeze play" by Microsoft to convince buyers that it's necessary to immediately upgrade all PCs to Vista and all servers to Server 2003 or the forthcoming Longhorn Server?

One example of this conundrum is Microsoft's Windows Defender program. This antispyware program can be downloaded for free, but it will only install on Windows XP, Server 2003, and higher. The application won't install on Windows 2000, according to Microsoft's own product documentation.

Users have reported, however, that this is simply an artificial rule built into the Installshield package that copies Defender files to disk.

The installer contains a condition defined as VersionNT > 500. (Windows 2000 is technically considered version 5.0 of Windows NT.) Admins who've removed this condition using Orca, an Installshield editor, say Defender then installs and runs fine on Windows 2000. (For information on editing Installshield .msi files with Orca, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 255905.)

Regardless of whether Microsoft apps are unnecessarily shutting out Windows 2000, the writing is on the wall. The company has fairly strict policies defining when it stops supporting older products. In the case of Windows 2000, the end of what Microsoft calls "mainstream support" came in June 2005.

Read all about it here courtesy of Informationweek.com

-Eric

Wii mishaps lead to busted t.v.'s, bones and tempers
People are getting out of control with a new way to play console video games...

SEATTLE — Jaana Baker is no klutz _ note her second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. She's also an avid video gamer who puts out a Web-based comic called "Level 99" in her spare time.

So how did Baker end up launching the controller of her new Nintendo Wii right into her 37-inch TV? Like some other owners of the new game console and its motion-sensitive wireless remote, Baker took the freedom to move a little too literally.

It was a particularly spirited round of Wii bowling caused her to lose her bearings before unleashing what she had hoped would be a perfect strike.

"It was like a loud crack," she said, recalling the moment the "Wiimote" glanced off her coffee table, snapped its wrist strap and hurtled into her flat-screen TV. "It was kind of surreal, actually. I thought I was dreaming at first."

It appears that Baker is not alone. In recent weeks, the Web has been alight with reports of excited gamers losing their grip on the Wii's controller or smacking their arms into nearby objects.

After issuing a general "calm down" to its customers a week ago, Nintendo Co. has responded by quietly beefing up the controller's fabric wrist strap, spokeswoman Beth Llewelyn said.

Read all about it here courtesy of foxnews.com.

-Eric

Vista to cause hardware headaches
Vista causing orphened hardware syndrome for legacy equipment. Retailers not happy.


Yen Ting Chen, Taipei; Rodney Chan, DigiTimes.com [Wednesday 13 December 2006]

With Windows Vista up and coming, makers of motherboards and VGA cards are now worried they will incur losses from their inventory of low-end products that do support Microsoft's new operating system (OS), according to industry sources.

The makers are now raising the proportion of shipments to emerging markets and government purchases, worrying that if they are unable to clear their inventories of such low-end non-Vista-supporting motherboards and graphics cards, prices of such products will plummet after the new OS hits the market, the sources said.

The sources pointed out that non-Vista-supporting products, such as the ATI Radeon 9250 and Nvidia MX4000 have seen their prices fall to US$35 and below US$30, respectively.

Sources in Taiwan's PC sector said the proportion of products that do not support Vista is currently very low in the market, as Nvidia and AMD-ATI have already reduced the output for such products.

They pointed out that almost all PC products in the market now support at least Vista Basic, with little demand for low-end products that do not support Vista at all.

The sources predict that even products that only support Vista basic may quickly fall out of favor in the market as consumers are likely to be more eager to experience the full multimedia functions promised by Vista.

Meanwhile, sources with motherboard makers revealed that AMD-based motherboards with Nvidia GeForce 6100 and nForce 400 are currently among the market favorites. Many makers of such motherboards have received Vista-certification, the sources added.

Motherboard makers are also gearing up their development of Intel 945GC-based products, which have very good market potential, the sources said. Currently, Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) has launched its 945GC-based motherboard, the 945GCT-M3.

Read all about it here courtesy of digitimes.com.

-Eric

UCLA probes computer security breach
800,000 current and former students, faculty and staff are now at risk of identity theft

By BROOKE DONALD

The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 12, 2006; 9:43 AM

LOS ANGELES -- The University of California, Los Angeles alerted about 800,000 current and former students, faculty and staff on Tuesday that their names and certain personal information were exposed after a hacker broke into a campus computer system.

It was one of the largest such breaches involving a U.S. higher education institution.

The attacks on the database began in October 2005 and ended Nov. 21 of this year, when computer security technicians noticed suspicious database queries, according to a statement posted on a school Web site set up to answer questions about the theft.

Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams said in a letter posted on the site that while the database includes Social Security numbers, home addresses and birth dates, there was no evidence any data have been misused.

The letter suggests, however, that recipients contact credit reporting agencies and take steps to minimize the risk of potential identity theft. The database does not include driver's license numbers or credit card or banking information.

"We have a responsibility to safeguard personal information, an obligation that we take very seriously," Abrams wrote. "I deeply regret any concern or inconvenience this incident may cause you."

Read all about it here courtesy of Washingtonpost.com.

-Eric

Top 10 Scams of 2006
The worst of the worst consumer con jobs...

December 11, 2006
As 2006 draws to a close, a review of ConsumerAffairs.com's Scam Alerts archive shows that scammers have had a busy and -- we suspect -- lucrative year.

Targeting the most vulnerable citizens and using increasingly sophisticated tools, most have been able to easily elude law enforcement as they pick their victims' pockets, sometimes even making off with their life savings.

Scammers scored at will, generating instant cash using lottery and fake check scams. They capitalized on news events and pop culture to catch consumers off guard, and enlisted all kinds of emerging technology to perfect identity theft.

If It Sounds Too Good ...

Scams continued to be big business for criminals in 2006 and relatively risk-free as law enforcement appeared unable to keep up. As a result, consumers increasingly were at the mercy of scammers who use cunning, audacity and emerging technology to stay one step ahead of both their victims and the law.

The solution? Keep your wits about you, be skeptical and remember -- trite though it may be -- if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Read all about it here courtesy of consumeraffairs.com.

-Eric

Move over silicon, there's a new transistor material in town
indium gallium arsenide, or InGaAs...ahhh yes, it rolls right off the tongue.

Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology plan to present research on transistor technology next week that they hope will jumpstart a new development phase in tiny electronics beyond the iPod and the cell phone.

MIT engineers estimate that silicon transistors, essential to gadgets like iPods, phones and kitchen appliances, will hit a wall in terms of size and performance within the next 10 to 15 years. So MIT, among others, is working with new composite materials it hopes will be able to reliably outpace the conducting speed of silicon.

One such material is indium gallium arsenide, or InGaAs, a material in which electrons travel many times faster than in silicon. MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) recently demonstrated InGaAs-fabricated transistors that can carry 2.5 times more current than the latest silicon devices. The transistor was only 60 nanometers, or billionths of a meter long.

Read all about it here courtesy of news.com.

-Eric

Christmas lights degrade your Wi-Fi signal???
Oh noes! The evil x-mas haters now have another reason for wanting to ban the holiday season.

Survey results highlight wireless interference created by decorations in the office, AirMagnet illustrates how proper planning can resolve

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Dec 05, 2006 — AirMagnet Inc., the award-winning leader in wireless network assurance, announced the results of a recently conducted survey measuring wireless signal strength in a standard office setting both before and after introducing a change in the office environment — holiday decorations. While decorations are relatively commonplace at this time of year and might seem innocuous, as with any change introduced to a wireless environment, it's difficult to predict how new elements might affect wireless performance - but proper planning can help reduce the negative effect on wireless networks. AirMagnet's survey, using AirMagnet Survey PRO and AirMagnet Laptop Analyzer, showed the decorations had a significant impact on the Wi-Fi network, with:

• Signal strength decreased by 25 percent
• Signal deterioration increased over distance by one-third
• Signal distribution uneven in some locations, deteriorating signal strength by an additional 10 percent

Read all about it here courtesy of airmagent.com.

-Eric

Top 11 Best Gift Ideas for Geeks
Mark me down for #11 please...

Best Geek Gifts
11.	One year of "no computer questions" from everyone in your family
10.	Private show by the remaining cast of Monty Python
9.	Simultaneous devolution of all intelligent design proponents into chimpanzees
8.	The Sword of a Thousand Truths
7.	A "Nuke the RIAA from orbit" button (The type you press, not the type you wear)
6.	Charles Babbage's brain in a jar of formaldehyde.
5.	Life-sized, fully-functional Bender
4.	Star Wars Holiday Special where Jar-Jar gets trampled to death by Santa's eight tiny Wookiees
3.	Ten terabyte video iPod nano with expandable screen
2.	Guided tour of Area 51
1.	Customized Google logo on your birthday

Read all about it here courtesy of BBspot.com.

-Eric

Stealing Fair Use, selling it back to you
...and "Big Hollywood" wonders why people pirate and file share movies?

"Apparently, Hollywood believes that you should have to re-purchase all your DVD movies a second time if you want to watch them on your iPod." That's what I said last week, commenting on the Paramount v. Load-N-Go lawsuit, in which Hollywood studios claimed that it is illegal to rip a DVD to put on a personal video player (PVP), even if you own the DVD.

Well, this week the other shoe dropped. According to an article in the New York Times:

Customers who buy the physical DVD of Warner Brothers’ “Superman Returns” in a Wal-Mart store will have the option of downloading a digital copy of the film to their portable devices for $1.97, personal computer for $2.97, or both for $3.97.

So you buy the DVD, and if you want a copy on your PVP or computer, you have to pay a second time. Despite the fact that you bought the DVD, and you have a DVD drive in your computer that is perfectly capable of making a personal-use copy. Imagine if the record labels offered you this "deal" for every CD you bought -- pay us a few dollars extra, and you can have a copy for your iPod. And a few more dollars, if you want a copy on your computer, too! As LA Times reporter Jon Healey puts it in his blog: "So from the perspective of the studios and federal officials, consumers have to pay for the privilege of doing the sorts of things with DVDs that they're accustomed to doing with CDs (and LPs and cassettes)."

This latest bitter fruit from Hollywood is brought to you by the DMCA, which treats "protected" content (like the encrypted video on DVDs), differently from "unprotected" content (like every audio and video media format introduced before 1996). Thanks to the DMCA, Hollywood believes fair use personal-use copies simply do not exist when it comes to DVDs.

Given that the Copyright Office has refused [PDF, see p. 71-72] to recognize any DMCA exemption for space-shifting, claiming that putting a DVD you own on your iPod "is either infringing, or, even if it were noninfringing, would be merely a convenience," (excuse me, Copyright Office, that's a decision for a court to make) the ball is now in Congress' court. Let's hope Congressman Rick Boucher is listening and will reintroduce his DMCA reform bill first thing next year.

Read all about it here courtesy of eff.org.

-Eric

NVIDIA 8800 Roundup: The Best of the Best
Eval of the best 8800's you can buy...

Back when a new Intel chipset launch meant excitement and anticipation, we were always impressed by the widespread availability of motherboards based on the new chipset on the day of announcement. These launches with immediate availability were often taken for granted, and it wasn't until we encountered a barrage of paper launches that discussing availability was really ever an issue.

It wasn't too long ago that both ATI and NVIDIA were constantly paper launching new graphics products, but since that unfortunate year both companies have sought to maintain these "hard launches" with immediate retail availability. NVIDIA has done a better job of ensuring widespread availability than ATI, and last week's launch of the GeForce 8800 series is a perfect example of just that.

Weeks before our G80 review went live we were receiving samples of 8800 GTX and GTS GPUs from NVIDIA's board manufacturers, all eager to get their new product out around the time of NVIDIA's launch. It's simply rare that we see that sort of vendor support surrounding any ATI GPU launch these days, and obviously it's a fact that NVIDIA is quite proud of.

The G80 itself is reason enough for NVIDIA to be proud; widespread availability is merely icing on the cake. As we saw in our review of the 681 million transistor GPU, even a single GeForce 8800 GTX is able to outperform a pair of 7900 GTX or X1950 XTX cards running in SLI or CrossFire respectively. The chip is fast and on average an 8800 GTX seems to draw only 8% more power than ATI's Radeon X1950 XTX, so overall performance per watt is quite strong.

The architecture of G80 is built for the future, and as the first DirectX 10 GPU these cards will be used to develop the next-generation of games. Unlike brand new architectures of DirectX past, you don't need newly re-written games to take advantage of G80. Thanks to its unified shader architecture, the massively parallel powerhouse is able to make full utilization of its execution power regardless of what sort of shader code you're running on it.

NVIDIA's timing with the 8800 launch is impeccable, as it is the clear high end choice for PCs this holiday season. With no competition from ATI until next year, NVIDIA is able to enjoy the crown for the remaining weeks of 2006. If you are fortunate enough to be in the market for an 8800-class card this holiday season, we present to you a roundup of some of the currently available GeForce 8800 graphics cards.

Read all about it here courtesy of anandtech.com.

-Eric

Who governs virtual worlds?
The beginning of the end of online gaming as we know it today.

This is very bad news indeed. Anytime a governing body starts to dip their toes in the private sector, especially areas that they have no knowledge of...bad things happen as a result. In this is the case of governing (placing legislation, laws, taxes, etc.) online gaming worlds such as World of Warcraft and EverQuest. I find it completely amusing that governments can't legislate properly over "real worlds", so what makes them think they can do any better with "virtual worlds"?

NEW YORK--Who governs virtual worlds?

As games like World of Warcraft, Second Life and EverQuest grow and develop more sophisticated communities, that question will become more and more important. So much so that a group of experts appearing Friday at the fourth annual State of Play/Terra Nova symposium at New York Law School here spent nearly two hours putting the subject in context.

When disputes arise over in-world fraud or avatars attacking avatars, for example, what law should prevail?

Despite what the designers of some virtual worlds might like to imply, the group agreed, such environments are not autonomous countries and are therefore subject to real-world national laws. But because lawmakers in countries like the U.S. have been slow to understand virtual worlds and the legal, social and economic issues that arise in them, the experts said, legislators have not yet addressed many of those issues.

Perhaps the biggest question is whether the trade in virtual goods--weapons, armor, clothing, buildings and the like, all of which have real-world financial value--is taxable. Because that is such an important question, a separate panel is planned for discussion on it Saturday.

But beyond taxation are plenty of legal issues, which the experts addressed at the event, largely an academic gathering where professors from a slew of top universities come to talk about the intellectual, legal and social issues around virtual worlds.

Read all about it here courtesy of news.com.com.

-Eric

AT&T and Walmart Team up to sell DSL
Now you can pick up kitty litter and broadband at a Walmart near you...

AT&T (T) will start promoting its high-speed Internet service Wednesday in 570 Wal-Mart (WMT) stores across the phone company's 13-state footprint.

The number of stores will expand as AT&T launches DSL service in new markets, says Rick Welday, chief marketing officer.

"Wal-Mart has millions of consumers and potential customers going through their doors on a regular basis," he says.

Welday says the partnership shows AT&T's effort to be "easy to do business with, by being where the people are."

The Wal-Mart deal is the latest partnership for the carrier that now has 4,000 retail outlets for its communications products including voice, wireless, high-speed data and video.

Bumping up sales of DSL is critical for AT&T, whose long-term strategy hinges on selling consumers a fat bundle of services. Cable TV operators have essentially adopted the same strategy, putting pressure on both phone and cable firms to deploy a full range of services quickly.

AT&T recently launched its TV service, called U-verse, in San Antonio. Tuesday, it announced that it has added high-definition capability, as well as some other features, to the U-verse package. Such upgrades are important, because AT&T can't launch the service nationally until it can hold its own against the video packages from the cable TV giants.

Welday says AT&T, for the moment, won't be bundling DSL with other services as part of its Wal-Mart push. But he says that could change after AT&T's pending acquisition of BellSouth closes.

Welday says DSL sales will be handled in Wal-Mart's "Connection Centers," which are in-store boutiques that sell a range of communications and entertainment products. They include in some Wal-Mart stores DSL services from Verizon. (Verizon cut its Wal-Mart deal in June.)

In those markets, AT&T and Verizon both have phone networks, but their phone lines and DSL service areas do not overlap. Thus, they don't compete head-to-head for DSL customers as they do for cellphone subscribers.

Welday says its Wal-Mart partnership will be phased in. For now, brochures in the store will direct potential customers how to sign up by phone or on the Web. Customers will receive their DSL installation kits by mail.

Read all about it here, courtesy of news.yahoo.com.

Eric