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It’s amazing how much the world changes before breakfast.At 6am Pacific this morning, a joint Intel & AMD press release hit our inboxes like a nuclear bomb: AMD and Intel are settling their differences. And just like that, the CPU landscape as we know it has significantly changed.We’re previously talked about the spat between AMD and Intel, one that Intel was looking increasingly likely to lose. AMD had had leveraged some very serious accusations against Intel over actions Intel supposedly undertook earlier this decade: paying OEMs and retailers not to use or carry products utilizing AMD processors through the use...

Lawsuits wrapped up with cash, promises of good behavior If you were looking forward to a long and protracted antitrust battle between Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, you're out of luck. The two companies have buried the hatchet and settled all outstanding intellectual property and antitrust lawsuits. Under the settlement between the rival chip companies, Intel and AMD have signed a five-year cross licensing agreement and are letting go of any claims they made against each other with regard to breaches of previous cross-licensing arrangements. Oh, and AMD gets $1.25bn and Intel agrees to "abide by a set of business...

I spoke too soon. Earlier today I outlined AMD’s roadmap for 2010 - 2011. In 2011 AMD will introduce two next-generation microarchitectures: Bulldozer for the high end desktop and server space and Bobcat for the price/power efficient ultra mobile market. I originally said that AMD wasn’t revealing any more about its next-gen architectures, but AMD just proved me wrong as they unveiled the first block diagrams of both cores.****************************snip****************************** First up, Bulldozer. I hinted at the architecture in this afternoon’s article: “A major focus is going to be improving on one of AMD’s biggest weaknesses today: heavily threaded performance. Intel...

HardOCP Linked*****************************Nov. 10, 1983: Computer ‘Virus’ Is Born. Tech Gone Bad 1983: Fred Cohen, a University of Southern California graduate student, gives a prescient peek at the digital future when he demonstrates a computer virus during a security seminar at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. A quarter-century later, computer viruses have become a pandemic for which there’s no inoculation.

Current perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) for hard drives is going to reach its areal density limit, and it looks like the industry has not yet decided on which candidate technology is going to replace it. PMR reaches its limit when the magnetised area is so small its north or south pole state can be flipped by random heat fluctuations and changing the recording layer's chemistry to prevent that makes it much harder to write and read bits. There are two ways around this. Heat-assisted magnetic recoding (HAMR) says go with the changed chemistry and heat the bit before writing data...

The second half of 2010 could finally bring a much-anticipated Verizon Wireless iPhone. A new hybrid chip developed by Qualcomm makes it possible to communicate with several different network technologies using only one component. This means Apple can manufacture one device, the "world mode" iPhone that will work on all of the networks it's currently compatible with as well as Verizon's CDMA network. Previous reports speculated that Apple would wait until at least 2011 for Verizon's launch of LTE technology.

If the iPhone didn't finish off Windows Mobile in the smartphone market, the Motorola Droid may. Windows Mobile is losing the last vestiges of its mojo--if it really had any to begin with--as the Droid and other phones based on the Android 2.0 operating system push the buzz meter needle into the red zone. Many in the media--which can play a big role in steering users to one technology platform or another--sense that Windows Mobile has now been relegated resolutely to has-been status. The Motorola Droid's high-resolution screen.(Credit: Verizon) Let's do a quick canvas of what some in the press...

Technology giants such as Microsoft, IBM see high stakes in famed 'Bilski' case SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Technology firms will turn their attention Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is scheduled to consider a decision that could undercut legal protections afforded to a significant amount of the industry's software innovation.Oral arguments in the case, "Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw v. David J. Kappos," have been highly anticipated. Often referred to as the "Bilski" case, it was originally brought by an inventor who'd tried to win a business-method patent for a means to hedge against changes in commodity...

BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- The recent publicity for Hewlett-Packard and its new MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical system) accelerometer sent a message to Silicon Valley.The message was that MEMS technologies have indeed taken root and may be the target of the next generation of high tech venture investments after we're done with "green." H-P has long since been in the MEMS business since inkjet printheads are a MEMS device. Another famous MEMS device is the DLP (digital light processor) developed by Texas Instruments around 1987 by Larry Hornbeck. It was originally called a DMD, meaning digital micromirrors, the DLP now powers everything from...

Hearing the heartbeat of the Earth Getting the vision thing right is important for technology announcements and HP has it nailed, twinning a great vision with advances in its sensing technology. Here's Peter Hartwell, a senior researcher at HP Labs: "With a trillion sensors embedded in the environment, all connected by computing systems, software and services, it will be possible to hear the heartbeat of the Earth, impacting human interaction with the globe as profoundly as the Internet has revolutionised communication." Okay Peter, we're paying attention now. The meat of this concerns digital MEMS (micro-electrical-mechanical system) - accelerometers that signal...

Sony PRS-600 Reader Touch EditionReview When we reviewed Sony's original PRS-505 Reader a little over 12 months ago, our only real criticism was that the plethora of buttons and switches that festooned the device would be better replaced by a touchscreen. Revised edition: Sony's PRS-600 Reader Touch Now Sony has released its next-generation Reader, the PRS-600, which does indeed have a touch screen, hence its 'Touch Edition' moniker. Having asked, we have received. But should we grateful? Look at the Touch from any direction other than face on and the differences between it and the old Reader are a hard...

Everybody is looking to shake up the server business this days, it seems. But everyone had better get in line behind 3Leaf Systems, which is launching its much awaited "Aqua" system pooling and virtualization chipset and an intriguing x64 system to match. A little more than two years ago, 3Leaf Systems came out of stealth mode with a funky I/O virtualization product for X64 servers and the promise that it would create a special chip for system boards that would allow for the virtualization of multiple CPUs dozens or hundreds of servers and - here's the neat part - the...

It's hard to look at the DROID without looking at the company which brought the device to life. Motorola: for years the name has been synonymous with... well, disappointment. While the industry-stalwart made cellphones sexy with the RAZR, the days which followed have not been especially fruitful or compelling. Over the past year or so, we've seen Motorola beating its way back into the mainstream through a series of smart plays: first embracing Android as a platform, then shucking off the weight of Windows Mobile and finally bringing some desirable (and high profile) devices to market. With the DROID, the...

The Swiss company ReVolt, from Staefa, plans to release the new batteries next year, initially as small batteries for use in hearing aids, and later for cell phones. Eventually much larger batteries are planned for electric vehicles. The new battery was developed in Trondheim in Norway by the SINTEF Group, the largest independent research institution in Scandinavia, and ReVolt was formed to market the device. Zinc-air batteries need oxygen from the air to generate the current. They are safer than lithium-ion batteries because they do not contain volatile materials, and therefore do not catch fire. Non-rechargeable zinc-air batteries have been...

Mountain View wants your exabyte Google’s massively global infrastructure now employs a proprietary system that automatically moves and replicates loads between its mega data centers when traffic and hardware issues arise. The distributed technology was first hinted at — in classically coy Google fashion — during a conference this summer, and Google fellow Jeff Dean has now confirmed its existence in a presentation (PDF) delivered at a symposium earlier this month. The platform is known as Spanner. Dean’s presentation calls it a “storage and computation system that spans all our data centers [and that] automatically moves and adds replicas of...

Upstart multicore, Linux-compatible chip maker Tilera don't need no stinking tier one server makers. That means no IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, or Sun Microsystems. At least not yet. The company has just lined up $25m in its C round of funding, which includes $10m from Quanta Computer, the Taiwanese PC maker that is the volume leader in notebook manufacturing in the world. And as Tilera has confirmed to El Reg, Quanta is going to use Tilera chips to build servers. As it turns out, one of the reasons why Tilera announced its future Tile-Gx family of 100-core mesh processors last week,...

Apple iPhone and Google Android phone owners can now watch live NBA games The National Basketball Association is now offering mobile phone owners the ability to watch entire live games for $40 per year. Just a few games into the 2009-2010 NBA season, this is the first time entire games are available for streaming -- only game highlights were previously available through an official service. There are now three methods to watch complete games in the NBA:  via TV, PC, or now using a mobile phone.  Initial estimates report 59M mobile phone owners have the ability to watch streaming NBA...

We had a feeling this was coming. Mozilla has finally confirmed they are bringing the popular web browser to the Android mobile platform. Om Malik had an interview with Mozilla CEO John Lilly and VP Jay Sullivan who shared their thoughts on Android. “Until recently, Android was Java, but they released Android NDK which uses C/C++ and that is what we program in, so we are now looking at developing Firefox for Android,” said Jay Sullivan, vice president of Mobile for Mozilla. Mr. Lilly explained the reason why we have had to wait so long. “Sure, we are behind, but...

Ex-Microsoftie says that Windows 7 is doomed and Linux, free software, will ultimately dominate.A lot of open source advocates like to rage against the machine at Microsoft, but when a former Microsoft Research employee says that Windows 7 won't stop Linux from market domination, that's an opinion to note. Keith Curtis, author of the book After the Software Wars, says just that. But he goes further. He thinks Microsoft and its customers would be better off if the company ditched Windows and instead built its own version of the Linux operating system. These topics came up yesterday during my interview...

Verizon Wireless opened up to us. Verizon Communications Inc. and Motorola Inc. proudly and excitedly showed off their new Droid smart phone in a meeting Wednesday afternoon.First impression: The device is fast, powerful, fully featured and well-designed -- a combination of adjectives we've never used for a Verizon cellphone.When was the last time a Verizon phone got this much hype? The BlackBerry Storm? Ouch.Yet, one is coming on Nov. 6, and it has a good chance of living up to the hype. A phone with Google's fast-improving Android operating system, a 5-megapixel camera with a flash and digital zoom, a...

For all you alternative OS folks out there, Ubuntu 9.10 is now out. Grab it if you want it, try it if you haven’t. If you are unfamiliar with Ubuntu, I highly recommend you give our 30 days with Linux article a look.

Motorola and Verizon Wireless on Wednesday unveiled the Droid, a smartphone that will test whether the companies can use software from Google to chip away at the dominance of Apple's iPhone. The Droid, a svelte slider with a full keyboard and an expansive touchscreen, will be available at Verizon Wireless Nov. 6 for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate. Customers have to sign up for a two-year contract and data plan. Success of the new phone, which is being launched in a competitive holiday season, is crucial for Motorola, where co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha has placed a heavy bet on...

Google takes the fight to Microsoft and AppleFor those of you who have been eager to see what's going on with Google's upcoming Chrome OS, today is your big change. Google just announced that Chrome OS 4.0.223 beta is now available for download. The open source operating system is based on Linux and is aimed at the growing netbook sector which are taking over the PC market.

Tilera on Monday announced new general-purpose CPUs, including a 100-core chip, as it tries to make its way into the server market dominated by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. The two-year-old startup's Tile-GX series of chips are targeted at servers and appliances that execute Web-related functions such as indexing, Web search and video search, said Anant Agarwal, cofounder and chief technology officer of Tilera, which is based in San Jose, California. The chips have the attributes of a general-purpose CPU as they can run the Linux OS and other applications commonly used to serve Web data. "You can run us...

Tilera isn't a name you see on our pages too often (alright, never), because their products almost have nothing to do with what we normally deal with, such as desktop CPUs... or products you'd have in your machine at home. Their processors are interesting, though, because although they are designed for certain purposes (embedded, DSP, FPGA, x86), the numbers they boast can catch anyone's attention.According to the company, the new TILEPro64 processors are twice as fast as the previous generation, and offer a 35x better performance/watt ratio over Intel Xeon Quad-Cores. Despite the hefty jump in performance over their previous...

HOW TO UPGRADE WINDOWS 7 BETA OR RC TO WINDOWS 7 RTM (RETAIL VERSION) You can’t upgrade directly from a pre-release version—at least, not without a quick and easy workaround. Here is that workaround...The ProblemWindows 7 checks whether or not the current version you are running is a pre-release copy, and prevents you from upgrading further. For reference purposes, this is the error you’ll see when you try and upgrade.The SolutionThe solution is to edit a file inside the Windows 7 DVD—which you’ll have to extract to the hard drive to proceed. If you are using an ISO image for...

Several big tech companies depending on revamp of flagship product SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Toshiba Corp. has long maintained a staff of engineers at Microsoft Corp.'s headquarters, to consult on the development of products compatible with the Japanese conglomerate's personal computers. But collaboration between Toshiba and Microsoft on the newest version of the Redmond, Wash.-based company's flagship Windows software, dubbed Windows 7, was far more involved than it had been in the past - highlighting a need to dull memories of the product's flawed predecessor, and to bolster the fortunes of both Microsoft and the many technology companies that depend...

Windows alternative relies on Linux and the cloudIBM is trying to hit Microsoft where it hurts, with a new offering designed to lure customers away from Windows 7. < IBM takes aim at Microsoft Windows 7 with new desktop offering IBM is trying to hit Microsoft where it hurts, with a new offering designed to lure customers away from Windows 7. The top 7 roadkill victims on the journey to Windows 7 IBM Tuesday said it is teaming up with Canonical to provide cloud- and Linux-based desktop packages in the United States at half the cost of upgrading to Windows 7. It's...

Personal computers are about to get a makeover with the launch of the latest Windows operating system.**************************************************************** The BBC's Jason Palmer investigates Windows 7's pros and cons***************************************************** Microsoft is hoping the successor to Vista will be more of a hit with users when it launches on 22 October. Many of the features take into account multimedia applications and the fact that users are beginning to store their data on the internet. In the UK some computer stores are due to open at midnight so keen PC users can get their hands on the software.

Six new low power CPUs and two new Athlon II X3 CPUs coming soon While AMD doesn't have the fastest CPUs in the world anymore, it still offers some very powerful processors at some very competitive prices. It recently launched the first quad-core CPUs for less than $100, and today they are launching eight new CPUs that the company thinks will provide excellent value against the Blue Team's offerings. AMD is launching the first Athlon II X3 CPUs at 2.9GHz and 2.7GHz. It is also launching six new low-power CPUs; two each from the Athlon II X4, X3, and X2...

In late August we started asking our readers for any questions they had for NVIDIA about Linux and this graphics company's support of open-source operating systems. Twelve pages worth of questions were accumulated and we finally have the answers to a majority of them. NVIDIA's Andy Ritger, who leads the user-space side of the NVIDIA UNIX Graphics Driver team for workstation, desktop, and notebook GPUs, answered these questions. With that said, there are some great, in-depth technical answers and not the usual marketing speak found in many interviews. While Linux is our focus, Andy's team and his answers for the...

A month ago AMD introduced the world’s first quad-core processor to debut at $99. Last week, AMD announced its third quarter earnings for 2009. While the company as a whole lost money, the Product Company (CPU and GPU design) turned a small profit. I don’t want to say that the worst is behind AMD, but things are definitely looking up. Income Q3 2009 Q2 2009 Q1 2009 AMD -$128 Million -$330 Million -$416 Million AMD Product Company +$2 Million -$244 Million -$308 Million  And for the consumer, AMD is providing a ton of value these days. You're getting more transistors...

Add-ons blocked because of serious security vulnerability for Firefox users. A war has been raging between different web browsers for a long time now. The two main combatants in the battle are Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Firefox from Mozilla. Microsoft is still in the lead in marketshare with IE, but Firefox is grabbing up a large portion of the market for itself. Firefox hit the one billion download mark in August and has 32% of the browser market while IE holds about 60% of the market. Mozilla and Microsoft are working together on a security flaw in some Microsoft add-ons...

Intel used to be an ARM architecture licensee until 2006, when it sold its XScale division to Marvell. Intel had grown too large, too defocused, and in turn its core business had suffered. Don’t be confused, the focus wasn’t to be shifted back to desktop, but rather back to x86. It wouldn’t be until 2008 that Intel would reveal its more focused strategy unto the world: Atom. **************************************Diagram at the Website***************snip******************** It’s an ARMADA Marvell is introducing a fleet of new SoCs (system on a chip) and the brand is called ARMADA. Get it?Marvell is introducing four series of ARMADA...

Computers are becoming faster and more powerful all the time and those improvements have been mainly due to better hardware. Future improvements, however, may well rely increasingly on better architecture and software. One reason why this seems likely is that the human brain, with its very different architecture, dramatically out performs computers in performing various tasks (such as perceiving an object in a complex visual scene). If computers are to match the brain's performance, they likely will need to exploit features of the brain's design. In some regards the brain's hardware is far beyond that of a computer. Its "wires,"...

The pond that fills the bottom of the Mountain Pass rare-earth metal mine reflects the terraces. Digging is expected to resume by the second half of 2011 after the water is pumped out. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)Reporting from Mountain Pass, Calif. - Fear of a shortage of rare-earth metals used in high-tech military and industrial products has spawned global efforts to reopen abandoned mines, including the formidable Mountain Pass Mine in California's Mojave Desert. Discovered in the 1940s by uranium prospectors, Mountain Pass contains an array of rare earths, including cerium and lanthanum, in concentrations almost double those...

When Intel announced that the company was working on Larrabee as their next-generation graphics part, mostly everybody thought that Intel would kill ATI/nVidia with ease. After all, the company knocked AMD from its feet with Core architecture, and Intel felt as secure as ever. Over the course of the last couple of years, I have closely followed Larrabee with on and off-the-record discussions with a significant number of Intel employees. As time progressed, the warning lights stopped being blips in the distance and became big flashing lights right in front of our faces. After discussing what happened at the Intel...

It's big. It's ugly. And it's made from recycled parts, at least for now. It's called the "Frankencamera" — and it might someday change the way you take pictures.Computer scientists at Stanford University say the new camera works something like an iPhone: It can be altered in nearly infinite ways, depending on the applications downloaded to it.Even the best digital camera on the market today has lots of limitations, the professor behind the prototype, Marc Levoy, tells NPR's Guy Raz.Say you want to take a photo of your child playing with a new toy in a dark room, near a...

Discovery could be employed to produce graphene circuits at high yields **************************************************** New research shows how to control the growth of graphene deposits on an indium substrate. The graphene deposits concentricaly, forming tiny domes, the size of which researchers could control. The research could help to enable mass-produced graphene circuits. (Source: Alan Stonebraker)****************************************Graphene is one of the most promising materials for upcoming generations of tiny computer circuits.  A sheet of carbon a mere atom thick, the material provides good conduction, flexibility, and other desirable material parameters.  Its use could enable faster, smaller, and lower power circuits.  One problem, though, has...

"My co-worker, Tim, explained that our company, a major software vendor, is seeing its mainframe workforce rapidly approaching the age of retirement. Tim said IBM and most other firms whose businesses depend on mainframes are also dealing with this industry-wide problem. "Since the 1980’s, PC’s and UNIX machines were supposed to have taken over the computing world, relegating mainframes to the scrap heap alongside rotary-dial telephones, suitcase-size boom boxes, and Plymouth Reliants. Indeed, most mainframes from that era have been consigned to the scrap heap – only to be replaced by bigger and faster mainframes. "Today the number of mainframes...

So the developers of Google Chrome have released a “developer only” version of Chrome saying you should NOT install it unless you are a developer. They warn you short of saying that the developer release of Google Chrome will ruin your love life, steal your cash, and flirt with your mother. With this warning I assume most people shy away from installing on Linux.I ignored the warning. I’m glad I did.Let me preface all of this by saying I have been using Firefox since the alpha days. So I guess you’d consider me a Firefox Fanboy. I’ve tried all of...

Today, we're releasing an early version of Google Chrome Frame, an open source plug-in that brings HTML5 and other open web technologies to Internet Explorer. We're building Google Chrome Frame to help web developers deliver faster, richer applications like Google Wave. Recent JavaScript performance improvements and the emergence of HTML5 have enabled web applications to do things that could previously only be done by desktop software. One challenge developers face in using these new technologies is that they are not yet supported by Internet Explorer. Developers can't afford to ignore IE — most people use some version of IE —...

Software company Autodesk has failed in its bid to prevent the second-hand sale of its software. In a long-running legal battle it has not been able to convince a court that its software is merely licensed and not sold.Like many software publishers Autodesk claims that it sells only licences to use its software and that those who pay for it do not necessarily have the right to sell it on. It sued Timothy Vernor, who was selling legitimate copies of Autodesk software on eBay, for copyright infringement.The US District Court for the Western District of Washington has backed Vernor, though,...

We've yet to see a trade show where Sony left its Rhode Island-sized booth at home, and CEATEC is no exception. Aside from pushing its 1080p 3D installations with an epic amount of force, the company also had a smattering of swank new concepts on display that caught our eyes. A 0.2 millimeter-thin flexible OLED display was alive and displaying content, while an ultrathin Reader mock-up looked more like a MID and less like a Kindle. Without question, the two items that took our breath away were the all-panel laptop (which tossed the traditional keyboard in favor of a...

Fermi supercomptuer will be ten times more powerful than today's fastest supercomptuerNVIDIA was at the forefront of the push to move high-performance computing from CPUs to GPUs in scientific and other areas of research. As it turns out, the GPU is a very effective tool for running calculations historically run on the CPU. NVIDIA announced its new Fermi architecture at its GPU Technology Conference recently. The new architecture was designed from the ground up to enable a new level of supercomputing using GPUs rather than CPUs. At the conference, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) associate lab director for Computing and...

Since 2006, many observers have scratched their head over what prompted Google to pay $1.65 billion for the video site YouTube. We're now a little closer to the answer. Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in May, "I believe YouTube was worth somewhere around $600 million to $700 million."(Credit: Elinor Mills/CNET) The blockbuster acquisition for the 18-month-old start-up played a large role in sending valuations in the tech sector skyrocketing. Although YouTube made little revenue, the all-stock transaction gave Google control of a company many believed would change the face of mass entertainment. It also led to criticism from skeptics who...

From left to right: Charles Kao, Willard Boyle and George Smith. (Reuters) Three scientists who harnessed the power of light in ways that turned the Internet into a global phenomenon and launched the digital-camera revolution were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.Charles Kao, who was born in Shanghai and has both U.K. and U.S. citizenships, received half the total prize money of $1.4 million. Dr. Kao was lauded for a breakthrough that led to fiber-optic cables, the thin glass threads that carry a vast chunk of the world's phone and data traffic.The other half of the prize is shared...

REPLETE with Olympian fanfare, China just a few days ago "celebrated" the 60th anniversary of the founding and achievements of the People's Republic. Unfortunately, not everyone is celebrating -- especially not military analysts. They're not alone: China has big human-rights problems, especially as regards restive minorities such as the Tibetans and Uighurs (Chinese Muslims). And Beijing has limited entry by foreign companies into China's booming market of 1.3 billion people. Plus the Greens are unhappy with the "Middle Kingdom's" belching smokestacks, which make it the world's largest greenhouse-gas producer.

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The beta release of Karmic Koala, the next version of Ubuntu Linux, just arrived on the net. Wondering what's new inside the open-source operating system? We took a tour and brought back these screenshots. Update: An earlier version of this post used screenshots from Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 6, which, while feature-complete, did not include the artwork overhaul included in the 9.10 beta. We've re-toured Karmic Koala and replaced the screenshots, as well as added an item to note the changes. Apologies for any confusion—or disappointing design schemes.In general, Ubuntu 9.10, or Karmic Koala, doesn't have a whole ton of new-new...