Free Republic

Internet users who are familiar with the frustrations of the "world wide wait" may find this hard to believe. Researchers in Europe have succeeded in setting a new world record for internet speeds, sending data at a rate of 483 megabits per second - nearly 500 times faster than even a well equipped home or business user can normally expect to achieve.The record was set over an ordinary internet connection running for 2,518km between Slovenia and Spain, using the new Ipv6 protocol. While the technique has been available for some years, most parts of the internet do not use the...

<p>To the PC industry, such thinking is lethal. It represents not just the bottoming out of a business cycle, but a seismic shift. It's the death of the business model that drove the industry for the past 20 years. Now, even as computers have raced ahead in speed, sales have slowed -- down 5% last year alone, according to Gartner Group. Declines were unheard of in the 1990s, when double-digit annual growth was the norm, some years even approaching 30%.</p>

<p>In June, 1956, IBM shipped the world's first commercial magnetic hard-disk drive. As big as a garden shed, the unit used 50 magnetic disks spinning at 1,200 revolutions per minute. Together, the disks could hold five megabytes of data. IBM rented out the contraption for tens of thousands of dollars per year.</p>

<p>The new laser technology offers a five-fold increase in DVD capacity.</p> <p>IRVINE – Intersil Corp. introduced a chip Monday that could change the DVD world as we know it.</p> <p>The Intersil chip makes possible a new breed of digital video recording, called Blu-Ray Disc, that burns five times more video onto a DVD than today's typical DVD recorder.</p>

<p>PALO ALTO – Researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs have developed a new manufacturing process capable of producing molecular-scale circuits vastly denser than today's most advanced semiconductor chips.</p> <p>The discovery offers the hope of assembling billions or even trillions of molecular-size switches in an area comfortably smaller than a fingernail, and at a cost far lower than today's computer chips. The advance could lead to immensely powerful and inexpensive computers capable of holding entire libraries of music and movies for the consumer, or calculating now-unsolvable problems for scientists.</p>

If the U.S. government were truly interested in preserving the nation's security, there would be tanks, soldiers, and flame-throwers encircling the Microsoft Corporation at this very minute, and not to guard the place, either.We're kidding, but only a little. Is there anyone, anywhere, who does not think that the monkeyshines in which Microsoft is increasingly engaged are more a threat to the country's well being than were the ravings a decade ago of David Koresh? We hold no special brief for Koresh other than to note that he and his followers by all accounts were minding their own business when...

WHEN the hordes of volunteer programmers who make up the open-source movement met this week for their annual convention in San Diego, one constituency was conspicuously absent: entrepreneurs. Many start-ups that tried to make money from open-source software have already gone bust, and many of those that have survived are in a sorry state.This is not all that is worrying open-source advocates. Microsoft is leading an increasingly nasty campaign against programs such as Linux, the free operating system, and has even been putting it about that such programs make it easier for terrorists to hack into computers. Worse, Linus Torvalds,...

Advanced Micro Devices is building a 64-bit field of dreams. As Intel accelerates the launch date of its 3GHz Pentium 4 chip, arch rival AMD continues to build the foundation for "ClawHammer." The 64-bit Athlon processor is expected to come out early next year, giving desktop PCs a performance similar to that of workstations used in research labs at DaimlerChrysler or NASA. To make sure ClawHammer arrives on solid footing, AMD is working with a long list of partners who will build that hardware and software that can take advantage of such a chip. The company has already sent tens...

-----Original Message----- From: Lori Latham Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 11:12 AM To: Caye Caves; Gayla Gould; Judy Whitt; Gatesville Lobby Teller 1; Gatesville Lobby Teller 2; Mildred Jean McIver; Bobby Sue Sikes Subject: FW: Winders2000 WINDOWS 2000 TEXAS VERSIONDear Consumers: It has come to our attention that a few copies of the WINDOWS 2000 TEXAS EDITION may have accidentally been shipped outside of the state of Texas. If you have one of these, you may need some help understanding the commands. The TEXAS EDITION may be recognized by the unique opening screen. It reads: "WINDERS 2000, with a background...

PALO ALTO, Calif. -(Dow Jones)- If at first you don't succeed, bring out Itanium 2. That is what Intel Corp. (INTC) will do on Monday to rising expectations that this new top-of-the-line chip will do what its predecessor couldn't: compete for the most demanding of corporate computing jobs. That will mean taking on the titans of high-tech computing, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), all of whom make the powerful Unix servers companies rely on for their internal business systems. Intel is expected to unveiled three Itanium 2 chips, and computer makers such...

June 20, 2002 -- Researchers at the University of Toronto have discovered a new technique to form tiny perfect crystals that have high optical quality, a finding that could usher in a new era of ultra-fast computing and communication using photons instead of electrons. These crystals, called photonic crystals, could greatly improve both speed and bandwidth in communications systems, says University Professor Geoffrey Ozin of the Department of Chemistry. "All of the promises of what photonic crystals can do, in terms of guiding light and bending light in incredibly small spaces, may be achieved by the assembly of patterns of...

Caltech’s Thomas Sterling, often referred to as the “father” of Beowulf clusters, recently joined the board of directors of a relatively obscure financial firm called JJX Capital. JJX plans to build a massive AMD Athlon processor-based cluster to help it try and predict the future direction of the financial markets before its competition can. The company has labeled the machine “the largest commercial supercomputer in the world for securities trading using AMD Athlon microprocessors.” Supercomputing Online interviewed Sterling this week to learn more. SCO: You've recently joined the board of directors of JJX Capital. Please give us a little background...

Wednesday, Apr 24 @ 14:39 PDTSUNNYVALE, CA -- AMD (NYSE:AMD) today announced that it has selected "AMD Opteron" as the brand for its 8th-generation enterprise class processor for servers and workstations, formerly code-named "SledgeHammer." The AMD Opteron(tm) processor is based on AMD's 8th-generation processor core, which will represent the landmark introduction of the industry's first x86-64 technology. The AMD Opteron processor is designed to provide investment protection, running existing 32-bit applications with unsurpassed performance, and offering customers a seamless transition to 64-bit technology. The AMD Opteron processor will also incorporate the breakthrough HyperTransport(tm) technology, which helps to eliminate or reduce...