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As Intel and AMD near the end of the discovery process in their US antitrust battle, the two companies have begun fighting over whose testimony will make it to the big dance. In a legal filing, AMD has pointed to the employees at some of the technology world's biggest names - HP, Dell, IBM and others - who it thinks will help make its case. Intel has responded in kind, and it's now up to a judge to decide on the strength of the vendors' arguments. Following a dispute over the number of depositions allowed in the case, Special Master...

In a move that could have broad implications for the high-performance computing (HPC) market, Intel and Cray have announced a broad collaboration that will see engineers from the two companies work together on future products and projects.With the first Intel-Cray products appearing in the 2010-2011 timeframe, it's clear that three Intel technologies have caught Cray's eye: the native 32nm Sandy Bridge microarchitecture, the QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) scheme, and the forthcoming discrete, x86-based graphics product, codenamed Larrabee. Cray will plug all of these components into its SeaStar interconnect fabric, and when combined with Cray Linux they'll make for an HPC and...

FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. — One of the most experienced interrogators in the Defense Department looked straight into Ahmed's eyes and asked him for the third time: "Ahmed, what insurgent organization do you belong to?" Sitting in the room with no windows, Ahmed refused to answer the interrogator's questions. He was stoic — similar to many al Qaeda insurgents the interrogator had questioned at the detention center at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But, this time, things were different. Ahmed, who uses an alias, was practicing as an advanced interrogation student at Fort Huachuca, the nation's largest intelligence-training facility...

The United States has agreed to provide Israel with access to its BMEWS (ballistic missile early warning system). The half century old system uses radars and satellites to monitor the planet for ballistic missile launchers (specifically ICBMs, but any large missile launch is detected.) Twice before, in 1991 and 2003, the U.S. allowed Israel to plug into BMEWS (to get warning of Iraqi missile launches). This time around, BMEWS will give Israel warning about any Iranian ballistic missiles headed west. Early on, BMEWS consisted of long range radars that could spot warheads coming over the north pole (from Russia). When...

FBI chief blames Britain’s laws for the ‘dark hole’ in terror intelligence 13th April 2008 The war on terror is being hindered by restrictive British law which has created a "dark hole of intelligence", the director of the FBI has claimed. Robert Mueller, America's top counter-terrorist official, said in an exclusive interview that he sometimes felt "frustration" at MI5 and Scotland Yard's inability to obtain critical information from suspects. He blamed Britain's banning of plea-bargaining – which, in America, means suspects can receive much lighter sentences in return for revealing everything they know about other members of their cell and...

Intel 'will survive US recession' By Rory Cellan-Jones Technology correspondent, BBC News Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini says increasingly faster chips will drive the use of Wimax wirelss broadband. Intel will ride out any US recession and make a success of Wimax wireless broadband, the firm's chief executive Paul Otellini has told BBC News. He said: "People turn to computers to improve productivity during downturn, because at the end of the day the computer is a tool for productivity." Intel is the world's largest chip maker for desktops and laptops. Answering BBC News users' questions, he said Intel's developing world...

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq, March 19, 2008 – Multinational Division Center formed in spring 2007 as part of the U.S. troop surge. The progress made since then has been well-documented, as soldiers have built a network of patrol bases covering the “belts” of suburbs and agricultural communities surrounding southern and eastern Baghdad. What is less well-known is the surge in support required from other U.S. government agencies in bringing about those gains. In Multinational Division Center, one of the most significant of those surge partners is the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The NGA – a Defense Department support agency and a member...

Intel Corp. today announced that it expects to ship a six-core processor to resellers in the second half of this year. With 1.9 billion transistors and 16MB of Level 3 cache, the six-core chip, code-named Dunnington, will be built with Intel's new 45 nanometer technology, according to Pat Gelsinger, a senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group."The big cache and six cores will give customers a nice bump in performance," Gelsinger said during a press briefing today about the company's product road map and its upcoming Intel Developer Forum, slated to be held next month in Shanghai....

A new study commissioned by the Pentagon has reviewed over 600,000 documents captured in the invasion of Iraq, and the analysis shows no evidence of operational ties between Saddam Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda. It did find operational ties and more between Saddam and other terrorist groups, however, which will likely be lost in an avalanche of I-told-you-sos: An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network.The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this...

Doug Friedman, an analyst with American Technology Research, said that graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp. could well acquire x86 microprocessor maker Advanced Micro Devices in order to "re-architect it". The acquisition is considered to be useful due to the fact that roadmaps of AMD and Intel Corp. threat Nvidia. The only problem for the graphics giant is that AMD's x86 license is a non-transferable one... Indeed, shareholders of AMD are hardly pleased with the company's performance in the recent quarters as well as issues with the launch of quad-core microprocessors and the release of DirectX 10 graphics processing units. Nevertheless,...

The problem is not merely that someone who is himself so clearly a "rabid ideologue" might have been responsible for vetting the Iran NIE and then letting a skewed declassified summary of it out the door. Given how recently Immerman took his job, his precise role in the fiasco is unclear, although it is suggestive that his direct supervisor is Thomas Fingar, one of the authors of the controversial document. The real problem is that someone like Immerman, nakedly contemptuous of the administration in which he nonetheless sought a job, was appointed to a position of such high responsibility--or any...

Intel Corp. may release six-core microprocessors as early as in the second half of this year, according to a number of media reports. However, if those claims are correct, then it may mean not only another powerful central processing unit for Intel and a threat to chips from Advanced Micro Devices, but also a further delay in unification of Intel Itanium and Intel Xeon platforms. Intel needs a chip to update its multi-processor (MP) enterprise server platform this year as no Nehalem-based microprocessor for the MP market segment is planned for 2008... However, it seems like unified Quick Path Interconnect...

Last week Microsoft rolled out three prerequisite updates to prepare users computers for the first service pack for Windows Vista. However, one of these updates apparently caused serious issues among some users, prompting Microsoft to quickly suspend automatic installations of KB937287 after customers complained that their PCs wouldn't boot up properly once the update had been applied. For affected users who already received the update, the only solution is to reboot their computers, boot from their original Vista disc and restore their computer to a state several days prior. However, some users have reported hardware and hard disk problems after...

European Union antitrust regulators expanded their investigation of Intel before the world's largest chipmaker had a chance to answer pending charges, the chairman of Intel's board said on Thursday. Asked whether he was surprised that the European Commission had raided Intel in a new probe while still pursuing it on other charges, Craig Barrett said: "You have to ask the EU why they are expanding it at this stage." ...The Commission this month raided Intel offices in Munich and retailers in Germany, France and Britain, seeking evidence they acted illegally to exclude rival chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices... Also on Thursday,...

For those who crave more performance than what four processing cores and a single graphics card can deliver today, Intel Corporation has introduced the Intel Dual Socket Extreme Desktop Platform. Formerly codenamed "Skulltrail," this is one of the first enthusiast desktop platforms to support two Intel quad core processors for a total of eight processing engines and a choice of multi-card graphics solutions from either ATI or NVIDIA. "When it comes to delivering innovation to the ultimate enthusiast, our new 8-core desktop platform is a winner," said Jeff McCrea, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Home...

<p>The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has detained at an unknown location a former Sudanese Air Force pilot who may have been planning to hijack an airliner and fly it into a target in the United States, U.S. officials told CNN on Friday.</p>

Excerpt - DALLAS (AP) — Dell Inc. has stopped selling many computers with processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on its Web site, although it will continue selling some through retailers. The news was a setback for AMD, which wooed Dell for years before breaking the computer maker's exclusive supplier relationship with Intel Corp. in 2006. Intel still made the processors used in most computers sold on Dell.com. But AMD raised its profile in the chip field by being inside some Dell machines. Shares of Dell rose 2 cents, to $19.45, while AMD shares fell 25 cents, or 3.8 percent,...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6, 2008 – The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency gave the Senate Intelligence Committee an assessment of military threats confronting the United States during testimony before the panel yesterday. Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples told the committee that several global military trends concern the U.S. armed forces. He then went on to delineate specific threats to the United States, its allies and its interests. General threats include proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, more mobile and accurate ballistic missiles, improvised explosive devices and suicide weapons as weapons of choice for terrorists, and the continued development of...

You horrible cynics out there looked at Intel's mushy Montvale chip and scoffed. "That's the end of the Itanic." Ah, but there's a fresh monster on the horizon known as Tukwila, and systems based on that puppy should fly if its brand new QuickPath interconnect arrives as expected. Next week Intel will disclose details on QuickPath at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. [It's like the Folsom Street Fair - Google at your own risk - but with more brain and less testicle torture - Ed.] What will Intel say? Well, according to the conference program, showgoers...

New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo said Wednesday that his office has subpoenaed documents and information from Intel Corp. in an antitrust probe into whether the semiconductor giant tried to coerce customers to exclude rivals from the marketplace. In a press release, Mr. Cuomo said the subpoena is seeking documents and information concerning Intel's pricing practices and possible attempts to exclude competitors, including its main rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., through Intel's dominate position in the market, "Our investigation is focused on determining whether Intel has improperly used monopoly power to exclude competitors or stifle innovation," Mr. Cuomo said...