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When predicting traditional or conventional military threats, the U.S. Army employs analytical methodologies such as intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) and related tools. The terrorist threat, however, is unique in that its nature and survival require it avoid direct engagements with main force units. Terrorists are exceedingly mobile, have mastered the art of blending into the surrounding population, and employ harsh measures to ensure security. On the other hand, our national collection assets provide so much diverse information that making sense of it all is a daunting task. Reports on terrorist activity originate from all intelligence disciplines, to include...

Monday, December 11, 2006 Incoming House intelligence chief botches easy intel quiz WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, who incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped to head the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats take over in January, failed a quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of the key terrorist organizations the intelligence community has focused on since the September 11, 2001 attacks. When asked by CQ National Security Editor Jeff Stein whether al Qaeda is one or the other of the two major branches of Islam -- Sunni or Shiite -- Reyes answered...

I've been watching part of the Gates confirmation hearing this morning, as much as time would permit anyway. I had expected Gates to be little more than a typical intellectual analyst (the kind so common in the Company) given his background. However, so far, I've been favorably impressed by the few segments of testimony and examination I have witnessed thus far. I especially liked his tendency to place the onus on long term Strategic outlines for the War in Iraq and the War on Terror back upon Congress. I see obvious Cold War parallels here where the necessity for maintaining...

Thursday November 30, 2006 AMD Demos Native Quad-Core Server CPU AMD demonstrated native quad-core processors earlier today at the AMD Industry Analyst Forum. AMD Chief Sales & Marketing Officer Henri Richard is pictured below holding a native quad-core Barcelona processor next to Intel’s Clovertown processor that uses two separate processors on one package. AMD today demonstrated the industry’s first native quad-core x86 server processor, achieving four x86 processing cores on a single die of silicon. At the annual AMD Industry Analyst Forum, a server powered by four upcoming Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processors (codenamed Barcelona), manufactured on 65nm silicon-on-insulator process technology,...

It's been a long, long time, but I'm back in the market for a new PC. The last time I built a machine (10 years ago 8^) I used an AMD processor, but there were always "issues". I've been looking over at the Dell site, and they seem to have some very good deals. What is interesting is that the AMD-based machines are a good deal cheaper - and what about that Celeron? So today I'm looking to tap into the deep pool of Freeper knowledge.

After careful deliberation, the 9/11 commission concluded that continuity in the leadership of the congressional intelligence committees doesn’t matter. It thought bipartisanship should be avoided on the committees if at all possible and recommended that personal pique and racial politics trump substantive considerations. Actually, of course, the commission said none of those things, and on continuity, said the opposite. The sum total of the Democratic consensus on national security, judging by the bare-bones platform the party ran on this fall, is implementing the remaining unimplemented recommendations of the 9/11 commission. But House Majority Leader-elect Nancy Pelosi could flout the spirit...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2006 -- Failure of the coalition and Iraqi government to create a unified, peaceful Iraq would be catastrophic for that country and the region, and would embolden terrorists throughout the world, the directors of the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency said here yesterday. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the CIA, and Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the DIA, said that the coalition presence in Iraq is what’s keeping the country together, and an early withdrawal would cause a significant rise in violence....

HO CHI MINH CITY (Reuters) -- Communist-run Vietnam handed Intel Corp., the world's largest chipmaker, a license to treble its investment there to $1 billion, a week before President Bush is due to visit. In February the California-based firm announced it would put $300 million in Vietnam to assemble and test microchips that power computers and mobile phones, the biggest investment in the country by a U.S. company. The World Trade Organization formally invited Vietnam to become the 150th member. CNN's Anjali Rao reports (November 7) Next week, Vietnam's thriving economy will be on show when Hanoi hosts the Asia-Pacific...

For the past decade, Germans have watched in dismay as swaths of their vaunted industrial might migrated to lower-cost regions such as Central Europe or Asia. So it's all the more surprising that one U.S. high-tech company has concentrated almost all its manufacturing in Germany -- home of intransigent unions, coddled workers, and high wages. Sunnyvale (Calif.)-based semiconductor maker AMD (NYSE:AMD - News) has made the east German city of Dresden its manufacturing capital. Except for a small number of chips produced by a Singapore contractor, all of AMD's microprocessors for PCs, laptops, and servers come from two plants there,...

Democrats say the Republican head of the House Intelligence Committee had no grounds to suspend a staff member who's come under scrutiny for the leak of a secret intelligence assessment. The unidentified staff member, a Democrat, was suspended this week by Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., and is being denied access to classified information pending the outcome of a review, Hoekstra's spokesman, Jamal Ware, said Thursday. The Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, Jane Harman of California, wrote to Hoekstra that she was "appalled" by his action, which was "without basis." The leak to The New York Times of a National Intelligence Estimate...

European Union investigators believe they have enough evidence to pursue formal antitrust charges against Intel Corp., a critical step in their five-year probe of the computer-chip maker, according to two people with knowledge of the case. Investigators for the European Commission in Brussels have prepared a written draft of charges against Intel... After that process, a report will be sent to European antitrust chief Neelie Kroes, who will make a final decision, likely before the end of the year, on whether to issue formal charges against the Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker... Intel would then get two months to issue...

SAN FRANCISCO--Intel is trying to see if millions of tiny robots can work together to create a coffee cup, or a model of a truck. Intel's lab in Pittsburgh, affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University, is showing off a technology concept at the Intel Developer Forum here this week called Dynamic Physical Rendering, which could ultimately lead to a shape-shifting fabric.Apply the right voltage and software program and the flat piece of fabric turns into a 3D model of a car. Change those parameters and it transforms into a cube. Dynamic Physical Rendering has grown out of the ongoing Claytronics project...

Some sentences in the Key Judgments contradict themselves, and some are trite (“We judge that groups of all stripes will continue to use the Internet…..”). Others are classic examples of the “on the one hand, on the other hand” syndrome. And still others are simply unintelligible – they are neither right nor wrong, but written in a way to make them subject to whatever interpretation the reader wishes to make. No issue is more important to our country’s security than the future of terrorism, and nothing could be more helpful to the President than a clear and accurate projection of...

Right about now, Dell has to be wondering: "Intel, was it something we said?" If Dell actually gives voice to the question, though, I expect Intel would confide, "Nah. It was something you did -- building boring computers. But it's not just you. Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo pretty much bore users to tears, too." Recognizing that the EBA ("Everybody But Apple") computer makers have gotten stuck in a decades-long rut of churning out plain beige, or occasionally grey, boxes as their primary form of desktop computing power, Intel CEO Paul Otellini announced a new contest on Tuesday. Intel will pay...

The report notes that the intelligence disseminated from 1998 on "encompassed, for example, indications of plots for attacks within the United States," including "attacks on civil aviation; assassinations of U.S. public officials; use of high explosives; attacks on Washington, D.C., New York City, and cities on the West Coast; crashing aircraft into buildings as weapons; and using weapons of mass destruction." [emphasis added] As with the August 6, 2001 PDB, "the intelligence that was acquired and shared by the Intelligence Community was not specific as to time and place." Nonetheless, it "should have been sufficient to prompt action to insure...

Intel is pulling out all stops to turn up the heat on its smaller but more nimble rival AMD. The latest salvo comes with the announcement that the new quad-core Core 2 Extreme chips for the high performance games market will be available in November sporting a whopping 70% performance hike. AMD has tried to gain a lot of political capital from the fact that Intel's new quad-core package is not really a quad-core chip but in fact two dual-core chips "stitched together". However, Intel CEO Paul Otellini has a point when he says that consumers don't care whether they're...

A federal judge dismissed a major portion of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s antitrust lawsuit against archrival Intel Corp., ruling that AMD cannot sue in the U.S. for Intel's alleged monopolistic tactics overseas. The judge also set a trial date of April 27, 2009 for AMD to argue that Intel forced major customers into exclusive deals and offered secret rebates to undercut AMD in the market for microprocessors that act as the brains of computers. U.S. District Judge Joseph J. Farnan Jr. set the 2009 trial date Wednesday, a day after stripping a key component from AMD's lawsuit, which alleges anticompetitive...

Intel third horseman Andy Grove has chastised HP for its recent management shakeup. The printing, imaging and spying company should not have elevated CEO Mark Hurd to the Chairmanship, according to Intel's ex-top dog. "Every time I see that a company that has departed from the ... combined chairman-chief executive role go back . . . I'm sorry to see that," Grove told the AP in an interview. HP took the unusual step of rewarding Hurd for presiding over the company's spy scandal by promoting him to the Chairman role. The top spot will be vacated when current Chairman Patricia...

For the performance of Clovertown you'll have to wait a bit longer as we're not allowed to disclose it just yet, but we wanted to let you know that so far it's looking like you'll be able to upgrade your Mac Pro to 8 cores in the not too distant future.

LOS ANGELES--Today saw the second of the big three console makers announce its next-generation platform. At its pre-E3 press conference, Sony Computer Entertainment gave the world its first look at the PlayStation 3, as it is now officially called. While the device's price has not yet been set, its release window--spring 2006--has. Flanked by Sony Computer Entertainment America President and CEO Kaz Hirai, SCE head Ken Kutaragi introduced it as a "supercomputer for computer entertainment." The name was not unexpected, since Sony had been running an extensive teaser-ad campaign prepping the public for the PlayStation 3. The company had laid...