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Moore's Law, which postulates that the number of transistors on a chip will double every 18 to 24 months, recently faced a major roadblock: power leakage. However, by using so-called "high-k" materials, IBM and Intel both say they have remedied this efficiency problem, allowing the continued shrinking of computer chips. Worries over the imminent death of Moore's Law have apparently been greatly exaggerated. At least that is the word following announcements on Saturday from both IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) that each has developed a new energy-saving microchip design. According to the two chip makers, the advance is...

Here's SCO 10K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2006. In it, SCO admits: IBM has filed 6 motions for summary judgment that, if granted in whole or in substantial part, could resolve our claims in IBM’s favor or substantially reduce our claims.... We can not guarantee whether our claims against IBM or Novell will be heard by a jury. What they don't tell us is how many employees they've lost since October of 2006, despite reportedly saying at the most recent conference call that they would. They provide the same figure that they gave at the conference call,...

Intel claims major advancement in the 45nm technology for processors, but IBM and Intel’s rival AMD had already claimed the same thing last December. The 45 nanometer (45 nm) process is the next milestone (to be commercially viable in mid 2007 to early 2008) in CMOS fabrication. Intel stated in 2003 that high-k gate dielectrics may be introduced at the 45 nm node to reduce gate leakage current. However, chipmakers have since then voiced concerns about introducing these new materials into the gate stack. Intel’s researchers say their advancement in the 45nm technology represents the most significant change in...

IBM and Intel accelerated their horse race in semiconductors when each unveiled at midnight Saturday Eastern Time similar chip-manufacturing advances. The research from both companies involves a crucial building block — called high-k material — to build smaller, more efficient transistors in microprocessors. High-k materials are better insulators than standard silicon dioxide, allowing engineers to keep shrinking transistors without losing efficiency through leaking electricity.In both announcements, engineers say they plan to use the material to build transistors that switch on and off better, using “high-k metal gate” technology.The announcements promise to keep alive Moore’s Law, which holds that the number...

Chips push through nano-barrier New materials have had to be developed to shrink the transistors The next milestone in the relentless pursuit of smaller, higher performance microchips has been unveiled. Chip-maker Intel has announced that it will start manufacturing processors using transistors just 45 nanometres (billionths of a metre) wide. Shrinking the basic building blocks of microchips will make them faster and more efficient. Computer giant IBM has also signalled its intention to start production of chips using the tiny components. "Big Blue", which developed the transistor technology with partners Toshiba, Sony and AMD, intends to incorporate them into its...

Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, has overhauled the basic building block of the information age, paving the way for a new generation of faster and more energy-efficient processors. Company researchers said the advance represented the most significant change in the materials used to manufacture silicon chips since Intel pioneered the modern integrated-circuit transistor more than four decades ago.

The fate of the SCO Group's Linux-related lawsuits, as well as the Lindon software company's very future, could ride on how a federal judge interprets the word "all."    The way U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball rules on that question involving ultimate ownership of the Unix operating system could not only torpedo SCO's slander of title suit against Novell Inc., but fatally undermine its bigger, $5 billion claim against IBM. After hearing competing motions Tuesday, Kimball must decide whether SCO bought all rights to Unix in 1995 - or whether the seller, Novell, retained ownership while granting only limited licensing and...

IBM did not destroy crucial evidence in its long-running dispute with The SCO Group, a judge has ruled. SCO claimed IBM had destroyed materials last year, but the US judge has ruled that the evidence was actually provided to SCO some time ago. The decision is the latest in a long line of setbacks for SCO, which is claiming that IBM put some material from the Unix operating system into the open source Linux system. SCO owns some intellectual property rights in Unix and is suing for copyright infringement. SCO is claiming damages that it has said could reach $5bn...

Link only per FR hosted.ap.org policy:IBM Posts Big Fourth-Quarter Profit Rise

Some activity in SCO v. Novell, and our first strong hints about what the Microsoft and Sun licenses were about, as Novell tells the court why SCO owes 95% of that money to Novell.But the big news is that in Novell's Redacted Reply to SCO's Opposition to Novell's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment or Preliminary Injunction, Novell informs the court, on page 15, that for SCO bankruptcy is inevitable and imminent:For SCO, bankruptcy is inevitable; it characterizes its assets as merely those “remaining” and does not rebut Novell’s arguments that its bankruptcy is imminent. Imminent. Inevitable. Bankruptcy. Here's the Pacer...

A lawsuit against IBM may help settle the question of whether workers hooked on the Internet can claim a legitimate addiction By his own admission, James Pacenza was spending too much time in Internet chat rooms, in some of them discussing sex. He goes so far as to call his interest in inappropriate Web sites a form of addiction that stems from the post-traumatic stress disorder he's suffered since returning from Vietnam. Whatever it's called, Pacenza's chat-room habit cost him his job. After 19 years at IBM (IBM, news, msgs), Pacenza was fired in May 2003, after a fellow employee...

I barely know how to tell you this, but SCO has filed a motion for reconsideration of Judge Dale Kimball's November 29th Order in SCO v. IBM, the one affirming Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells' June 28th Order. I guess they figure things are so bad now, they have nothing to lose by trying. Here's the Notice of Conventional Filing [PDF]. Yes. Of course. It's under seal. So is the memorandum in support. Perhaps SCO will grace us with a redacted version in a bit. But in the meanwhile, we are left with our mouths open. Whatever are they thinking? Delay?...

By the time my four year old son is swathed in the soft flesh of old age, he will likely find it unremarkable that he and almost everyone he knows will be permanently implanted with a microchip. Automatically tracking his location real time, it will connect him with databases monitoring and recording his smallest behavioural traits.Toronto Star

One day we will all happily be implanted with microchips, and our every move will be monitored. The technology exists; the only barrier is society's resistance to the loss of privacy Dec. 10, 2006. 08:46 AM KEVIN HAGGERTY SPECIAL TO THE STAR By the time my four-year-old son is swathed in the soft flesh of old age, he will likely find it unremarkable that he and almost everyone he knows will be permanently implanted with a microchip. Automatically tracking his location in real time, it will connect him with databases monitoring and recording his smallest behavioural traits. Most people anticipate such a...

A prototype memory card technology 500 times faster than Flash cards has been unveiled by IBM to meet the exploding demand for portable music, video and photo storage. Developed in conjunction with partners Macronix and Qimonda, the technology is a form of phase-change memory (PCM), which promises faster read and write times than Flash, greater endurance and the ability to write to individual memory addresses. It only requires half the power of a Flash memory card. The technology utilises a new semiconductor alloy - a combination of germanium, antimony and tellurium - that can be scaled smaller than Flash technology....

The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] and partner Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) [NYSE: SAI], acting as the Lead Systems Integrator for the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, today announced the selection of IBM Corporation's Global Business Systems division of Bethesda, Md., as the provider of Logistics Data Management Service (LDMS) for FCS. LDMS is the FCS sustainment and supportability data management service that will be tightly integrated with the Army's Logistics Enterprise. "LDMS will provide a network-enabled, performance-based logistics solution for the U.S. Army that will reduce the logistics footprint, increase operational availability and significantly lower life-cycle costs...

The Moscow headquarters of IBM and several other computer companies were raided Wednesday by masked law enforcement officials toting automatic rifles. It remained unclear Wednesday evening which branch of law enforcement was conducting the raids on IBM and two other companies, Lanit and R-Style, and what might have been the purpose of the raids. An unidentified law enforcement source told Interfax that a total of 10 locations in the city had been raided. Agents from the Interior Ministry's economic crimes department Wednesday raided the headquarters of the State Pension Fund, Gazeta.ru reported.

Investors fled SCO Group’s stock on Friday, voting with their feet after a federal judge gutted its lawsuit against IBM. In mid-morning trading, SCO Group (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people ) traded at $1.36, down 64 cents, or 32%. [snip] On Thursday, the judge said SCO Group had provided no evidence to support its claim that IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) took code from Unix, which SCO claims to have some copyrights, and added it to Linux. Read the rest here.

Feast your eyes on this: Judge Dale Kimball has affirmed [PDF] Judge Brooke Wells' June 28, 2006 Order. Here's the heart of it: Having thoroughly reviewed and considered the briefing related to IBM’s Motion to Limit SCO’s Claims, the briefing related to SCO’s objections, the underlying previous discovery orders, and the arguments made at the October 24 hearing, the court finds that, even under a de novo standard of review, the Magistrate Judge’s June 28, 2006 Order is correct. The court finds that SCO failed to comply with the court’s previous discovery-related Orders and Rule 26(e), that SCO acted willfully,...