NEWS WATCH ARCHIVES

AMD starts campaign to gussy up its image — just in time

In the absence of a next generation chip, AMD has opted to launch an ad campaign. Good idea. The response to to AMD's announcement that their new generation chips will be delayed has been disproportionately negative. The company is weathering an Osborne effect as customers have held off buying new equipment waiting for new products. Also, the lag in performance that Intel's Pentium 4 was suffering as it operated at lower clock speeds is improving as Intel introduces faster chips. This is reducing AMD's ability to position their chips as higher performing chips than Intel's even at slower clock speeds.

There's nothing wrong with the Athlon XPs AMD has now. They're still the solid, competitively priced products they always were and consumers have clearly demonstrated their willingness to go with AMD. Obviously AMD needs a stronger image and they hope to get it by hiring on McCann-Erickson and pouring $28 million into a marketing campaign. (The $28 million figure comes from Wall Street Journal estimates).

This represents the largest marketing campaign in AMD's history. The campaign is called "AMD Me" and the company it pitching it to consumers and the enterprise world wide. The campaign begins now and will extend through 2003. Plans call for the campaign to make 285 million impression worldwide.

This is something AMD has long needed to do. Granted the company has always reserved most of its spending for R&D, but if no one appreciates what you're doing, what difference does it make? This campaign needs to position AMD as a solid, dependable contender that's the equal or better than Intel in support and supply as well as in engineering. Compared to their success with consumers, AMD has failed in its ability to convince corporate buyers of their legitimacy. This is even more important as the company addresses the server, high-end workstation, and supercomputing markets with its new Hammer technology.

News story

Evans and Sutherland rolls out high performance PC-IG with COTS chips

In the military world the pressure directive, no matter how practical, is to buy COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) components. There are plenty of companies very interested in supplying them, but not all of them have the expertise in Viz-Sim that Evans and Sutherland does. For that reason anticipation has been high around E&S' SimFusion using ATI Radeon 8500 graphics chips. The company announced the official launch of the SimFusion 5000 on September 9, 2002, but systems are already being evaluated in customer sites and in use as well.

E&S says the SimFusion family is the first to use ATI graphics chips and it represents a new line of PC-based products that will be introduced in the future.

The SimFusion 5000 offers four- to sixteen-sample adaptive full-scene configurations with two or four ATI Radeon 8500 graphics chips, one or two DVI-I outputs and up to 250 Mbytes of unified memory.

Press release

Intel changes the rules: introduces new communications chip technology

In a switch from their earlier position claiming the world needed XScale because it needed a companion chip to the communications RF processor, Intel has announced plans to build a chip that combines analog and digital functions in the same chip. Key to the new design is Intel's 90-nanometer process and the use of silicon-germanium transistors. The company claims their technology will enable mixed-signal chips that in turn power mobile phones powered by a single chip.

Intel plans to ship the chips in early 2004.

Intel has the fabs for the job and the company has all he pieces. However, there are those who are skeptical of Intel's ability to build a chip with combined analog and digital elements. Analog doesn't scale like digital does. It's resistant to Moore's law. Intel says they wrote Moore's law and they'll rewrite the laws governing analog. The new chips will be made from 300 mm silicon wafers.

Obviously, this is very interesting news to the communications business. Earlier Intel had argued that the analog and digital elements should remain separate especially since the analog elements were fairly stable but digital components could change and be updated as new applications emerged. Intel, no doubt figures they have the XScale for those situations while their new chip could enable the development of very efficient, low cost devices for very broad markets.

News story

ESS shocks investors with lowered outlook for coming quarter

ESS was been banking on a nice boost from DVD sales for Christmas, but CEO Robert Blair has told the investment community that the market is not panning out like he had hoped. Earlier forecasts from ESS predicted revenues of $86 million. Now the company is telling investors it looks like they're going to get $60-$64 million. ESS has always been a tough competitor on the issue of price and it looks like competition from low-ballers Mediatek which integrates servo and DVD processing in one chip has pushed ESS into a corner. Coming right up behind MediaTek is Acer which is also readying an integrated DVD chip.

The investment community is freaking out as they see demand for DVD slowing. However, we would argue that what's happening is not that DVD sales are declining but that price pressures have gotten untenable for some companies. This is something the industry has known about. DVD sales will plateau, but we don't see it coming real soon.

Unfortunately, the manufacturers have failed to make much of the extended DVD capabilities such as JPEG viewing, browsers, Internet access etc. that the chip vendors have been adding. This more than anything has damaged the DVD chip makers who will suffer if they try to go toe to toe with chip makers from Taiwan. They need to keep their prices up.

Zoran professes to be unafraid of Taiwanese competitor Mediatek which features an integrated servo claiming they will be able to beat the company on integration with new chips. Unfortunately, investors aren't buying it and analysts have cut their ratings for Zoran as well as ESS.

Press release

Pinnacle showcases Vortex at IBC

Here at IBC, Pinnacle is showcasing its Vortex networked news system, a system that builds on Pinnacle products such as the Targa 3000 video prodcessor and Vortex 200 news editing. The Vortex is an end-to-end solution that covers ingest, editing and playback and gives everyone access to footage as needed.

Grupo Televisa is one of Pinnacle's first major wins for Vortex but the company plans to see the new systems contribute significantly to its bottom line over the coming year.

Press release

ATI issues earnings warning; pledges allegiance to PCI Express

ATI slid an earnings warning in under the radar on Monday while much of the high tech world was paying attention to Intel and reading the tea leaves left by Paul Otellini. The market responded with equanimity as ATI had already laid the groundwork for this one. The company announced that its revenues for the fourth quarter will be in the range of $235-240 million. The company said its revenues are going to fall short of guidance offered in June 2002 as a result in weakness in the PC and notebook market. The company was surprised by less enthusiastic sales in the notebook segment but overall the company expects to see improvement in the fall quarter when ATI's new products the Radeon 9700 for the desktop and the Mobility Radeon 9000 get more play and back to school sales pick up.

As we say, the market responded calmly, but Nvidia's stock did see a slight bump in response to ATI's news as well.

Press release

In other news, ATI has underlined its commitment to PCI Xpress with an announcement that the company actively worked with Intel in the development of the new bus and that they see it as the successor to AGP as a graphics bus interface. ATI says features like virtual channels, quality of service and isochrony make PCI Express a suitable approach for graphics. Certainly, PCI Express has been suggested as a good approach for the graphics bus but we believe ATI is the first to spell it out.

Press release

Intel announces several initiatives at IDF for connectivity and security

Intel sees the lines blurring between devices, platforms and environments. At IDF, the company didn't segment its presentations between platforms such as PDA and PC, but rather looked at environments such as home, office and the road and acknowledged that people move through these environments and pick up a variety of devices to access digital data. Thus connectivity and security while connected are among the most important trends we'll see developing in the near future.

Among the announcements at the conference that covered these areas was the Extended Wireless PC -- a push for easier connectivity between devices in all environments. Intel is teaming with Microsoft to push the penetration of uPnP and it's also teaming with Sony to make a bridge to the consumer electronics industry. In addition, Intel is taking a system wide run at security with hardwired security in future processor platforms. The hardwired technology is codenamed LaGrande. More immediately, Intel is developing advanced security for Banias when it's operating with a wireless connection.

Finally, taking connectivity down to the system level, Intel also introduced a developer network for PCI Express. Intel would like to see PCI Express, formerly known as 3GIO, take over from proprietary interconnects and from PCI and PCI-X.

Relevant links:
Wireless PC
Computing and Commuting
PCI Express Developer Network:

As expected, Intel cuts prices on chips -- cuts are deeper than expected.

Just before its bi-annual developers conference, IDF, Intel announced deep price cuts for its current line of chips. That's because the company will be introducing new chips. Nevertheless, the aggressiveness of the price cuts and the fact that they include new chips introduced just last week has taken several observers by surprise. In has cut the price of its Pentium 4 2.4 by 52% to $193.

Intel also cut the price on its new Pentium 4M processors. The 2 Gigahrtz chip is 45% cheaper from $637 to $348.

See full story

ATI introduces the Mobility Radeon 9000

In order to underline the game worthiness of its newest product in the Radeon 9000 line, ATI introduced the chip at the ECTS show in London. In order to underline ATI's own game worthiness, or is it gameness, the company threw a party under the tube tunnels down by the London Bridge.

ATI says the Mobility Radeon 9000 makes true gaming notebooks a reality with chips that support DirectX 8.1 with Smartshader and a quad-pipe design. We'd go on but you've probably heard it before. The reviews are already coming in and so are the wins.

New notebooks using the part are coming from AlienWare, Compaq, Medion, and more.

Press release

Z/I Imaging choses 3Dlabs Wildcat III 6210 for ImageStation 2002 workstations

Z/I Imaging builds systems for big visualizations including earth imaging, photogrammetry, etc. The company builds aerial cameras, stereo softcopy workstations, photogrammetry scanners, and Image management and distribution software. Their newest system the ImageStation 2002 will put 3DLabs Wildcat III 6210 to work taking advantage of the loads of memory and frame buffer capacity on the Wildcat III 6210.

And how much memory is that again? Why it's 256 MB texture memory, 128 MB frame buffer (plus 32 MB DirectBurst memory) for a total of 416 MB.

In other 3Dlabs news

3Dlabs has announced plans to support AMD's Opteron and Athlon processors using x86-64 technology, otherwise known as Hammer.. Press Release

Can the newest Nomad give the iPod a run for its money?

Creative's Nomad MuVo is billed as the world's smallest MP3 player but its real claim to fame in our book is the drag and drop functionality. We've been begging, just begging for this. The MuVo has a built in USB plug so that users can plug it in, have it be instantly recognized allowing users to drop music files on the drive as if it were another drive on the computer. The slide-apart design let's the MuVo dangle from key chain or necklace as a cool piece of functional plastic. It runs for 12 hours on one AAA battery. The new MuVo comes in two styles, a 128 MB product for $169.99 and a 64 MB for $129.99.

We say this baby is every bit as sexy as the iPod and smaller too. (But we really like the thumbwheel on the iPod.) Press release.

Cirrus adds on to its line of audio player chips and an audio Christmas looms closer

The newest chip to come out of Cirrus is designed for digital audio players and it will enable sub-$50 CD players with support for digital audio standards including CD-DA, MP3, and WMA. The CS7410 is available ins MQFP packaging and is priced at $8.62 in quantities of 10,000. It's also available in LQFP packages. Press release.

Chicago's Adler Auditorium upgrades to E&S DigiStar 3

E&S is going to the Windy City to build a Digistar 3 system at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum. Plans call for the deliver of a production workstation this year and installation will be completed early 2003.

The Adler has been using an E&S StarRider and the museum reports a successful run for the system which was installed in 1999. The StarRider system ran 11,000 shows in its time.

The DigitaStar has new features including color star projection, an astronomy package, real-time 3D graphics and the ability to interact with the audience. Press release.

Zoran gets win with Pioneer for DVDR/RW recorder

Zoran's Vaddis 5 DVD multimedia processor is playing the video in Pioneer's new DVD-R/RW, the DRV-3000. This new machine will be sold in the Japanese market at first and is designed to copy television content and capture video camera footage via its IEEE 1394DV interface. With the ability to record television content to DVD-R/RW the new machine comes one step closer to the VCR model which offered users a hard copy in for exchange of tapes. The Vaddis also incorporates CPRM for copy protection, a feature we're going to have to see work out in practice. Press release.

Gettin' in on the act: ATI announces optimized drivers for Itanium 2

Along with Intel's announcement of the new Itanium 2 processor, ATI has announced drivers, saying "for the first time, workstation and server users will benefit from ATI's shader technology in a 64-bit environment." The new drivers are written for ATI's workstation board, the Fire GL. Press release.

Cirrus gets digital audio win with iRiver in SlimX portable audio player

Cirrus sees the digital audio market as a real opportunity that's going to grow dramatically in the in the next few years. In celebration, Cirrus is introducing several products to address the digital audio market including the EP73xx line of programmable audio processors. Cirrus hopes to define the terms of the game with aggressive pricing and targeted products. The company has announced a win for their EP7312 with iRiver for that companies new SlimX CD-R/RW player. As you might have guessed it's a slim, CD player with support for MP3, WMA, and ASF. Press release.

Yippee ti yo ti yea, Gator told to cut out the pop up adds

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton, our new hero, has ruled that Gator must stop delivering its pop-up ads on sites that have not authorized the ads. The suit was brought by several media companies including the owners of the Washington Post, the New York Times, and USA Today, complaining that Gator was indulging in parasitic behavior by delivering ads on top of their sites. Gator says they'll appeal.

We hope the action extends to other companies which push ad windows on to the computers of innocent surfers. Related story.

Samsung stands by ARM

Samsung and ARM have announced an extension to their strategic partnership and Samsung will gain full access to all IP to be developed by ARM for new products. The two companies plan to develop product roadmaps based on ARM's 32-bit RISC processor. Included in the deal is ARM's PrimeCell peripherals, AMBA Design Kit, AMBA Compliance Testbench, application software and ARM Move co-processor. Samsung is using the technology to expand product line in wireless, mobile, networking, consumer electronics, and security. Press release.

Sonicblue introduces Rio 900 digital audio player

Sonicblue's latest portable audio player features 192 Mbytes of memory for six hours of music. The player supoorts MP3, WMA and audio formats and we believe it too is using Cirrus's new EP7312 audio processor. The Rio 900 has an MSRP of $249.99 and it's available directly from the web site http://www.sonicblue.com./ Press release.

SGI and the OpenGL ARB announce OpenGL 1.4 -- a step on the path to OpenGL 2.0

The slow moving and very deliberate Architectural Review Board (ARB) for OpenGL has introduced the latest version of OpenGL and that's 1.4. (We're talking about an API that's over 10 years old and these guys haven't gotten off the 1.x version). However, the ARB has gotten all giddy with the possibility of programmability and is well on the way to finishing up the details of OpenGL 2.0 real soon now.

The changes in OpenGL 1.4 include:

Depth textures and shadow textures, enabling real-time shadows and related image-based rendering techniques

Vertex programming framework, setting the stage for user-defined geometry, lighting and shading programs and enabling high-level general-purpose shading languages
Automatic texture mipmap generation, providing rapid updates and high-quality texture filtering for dynamic textures
Numerous smaller enhancements including: Multiple draw arrays for higher geometry throughput; Window raster position, for precise 2D and image rendering; user-defined fog coordinate for advanced fog effects; user-defined secondary color, point parameters, texture, level-of-detail bias, texture crossbar, and new frame buffer blending modes and stenciling functions for more flexible shading and rendering effects

As you can see, the ARB, which includes 3DLabs, Apple, ATI, Dell, Evans & Sutherland, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, Matrox Graphics, Microsoft, Nvidia, Sun, and SGI, is making way for programmability. Microsoft has thrown a slight spanner in the works with the announcement that they own key IP including technology related to programmable vertexes, but at the moment the industryis holding its breath and hoping Microsoft will play square. Press release.

AMD issues a second warning and riles an already jittery market

AMD has issued a second warning in two weeks and has cut its second quarter sales forecast to $600 million down from $700 in its earlier forecast of $820-900 and down from its amended forecast of $620-700 announced on June 18. The more idiotic of the analyst and journalist crew are counting AMD out for the count, but cooler heads are seeing an industry wide slow down that's affecting AMD worse because many committed and casual customers are waiting for the Opteron. Unfortunately, the Opteron is not due to arrive until the end of 2002. Related news story.

Intel chooses Cirrus' MPEG A/V codec for Intel's Media Center Reference Design

In an effort to boost the slow-building but very promising DVR market Intel has introduced the Intel Media Center Reference design built around a Celeron processor and using Cirrus' CS92288 codec. Boxes built using Intel's design will function as DVR (digital video recording) devices for the living room with web browsing and VOD capabilities. The Cirrus CS92288 chip is capable of real time encoding and decoding and it supports MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 digital video as well as Dolby Digital and MPEG digital-audio standards.
Also included in the design are display components from Focus Enhancements, Maxtor hard drives, video decoders from Sigma Designs. The box uses a Linux-based operating system from Tuxia. The schematics are available on Intel's web site. Press release.

Toshiba opts for Spatializer in its Edge RD-X2 DVD recorder

Toshiba's brand new RD-X2 recorder is a DVD-R/RAM product that enables users to record up to six hours of content on a single disk. The way this works out on formats is that users can record to the DVD-Video format on DVD-R disks and be assured their content will probably (that's a very strong probably) play on most machines. If they have a DVD-RAM machine, users can record more data faster to that format. In addition, the RD-X2 includes an 80-gigabyte hard disc drive for DVR (digital video recording).

And, oh yes, we almost forgot our headline. Toshiba is using the Spatializer N-2-2 software to provide audio enhancement. Spatializer and Toshiba have been working together on several DVD products.

ATI and PalmSource announce licensing deal

Sometimes, all you have to do is speculate a little and suddenly the answers are handed to you. (It really works when you go out on a limb and speculate in public.) Recently, when writing about the potential of ATI's Imageon chip for handhelds we noted that the first announcement of a win was for a PocketPC-based device by Toshiba. And, we noted that all the demos we had seen were on PocketPC devices including the iPaq. At PC Expo however, ATI and PalmSource announced a licensing deal through which ATI will create a "complete silicon solution for Palm OS licensees." As you'll remember MediaQ is also a member of this list as is Motorola, Intel and Texas Instruments.

RealNetworks sinks in the Nielsen ratings

Shares of RealNetworks Inc. fell on the news that the company has lost market share. Of the three major contenders Microsoft, RealNetworks and Apple, RealNetworks' RealMedia still holds the lead. According to Nielsen/Netratings RealMedia holds 16.23% of the market compared to 14.41% for Microsoft's Media Player and 7.49% for Apple's Quicktime player.

The general assumption has been that Real had a larger share of the market. It seems clear from the increasing number of companies announcing support for Windows Media Player and its move into the consumer electronics market with DVD chips that Microsoft has gained ground. We also expect Apple to show gains with its MPEG-4 implementation in Quicktime. Press release.

And here's the good news: UMC sees sales rise in '02 quarter over quarter

Someone still wants chips says UMC which credits demand for mobile phones. Liou Fu-tai UMCs head of global sales and market said the second quarter is a definite increase over the first quarter. "That is already a done deal," he said and he's optimistic about the coming quarters. And to that we say Yipee.

Liou concedes that the PC industry has been difficult and that UMC's gain has come in communications as some companies find they have to outsource to get adequate demand for chips, but UMC is also counting on a seasonal boom at the end of the year. More info.

Microsoft shows how it's done -- embraces OS X

It has happened before and it is happening again. The Mac users of a Microsoft product will enjoy a slight advantage over their orthodox brethren as Microsoft introduces the latest version of Microsoft Explorer for Mac OS X.

On the PC side, support for Quicktime is not a big priority in Redmond and text anti-aliasing is RSN (real soon now) for most PC users. More information.

Rivals join hands in DSP race for cell phones and DVD players

Infineon has announced that it plans to join with a consortium of companies that are founding StarCore LLC, a Texas-based company building DSPs. The three compadres are Infineon, Motorola, and Agere. And actually, Infineon is joining Motorola and Agere, which have been working on this project and already have a technology called the StarCore DSP architecture.

StarCore is moving in on TI's turf. TI, as you'll remember, is a big contributor to the Texas economy and is a leading supplier of DSPs.

The new company will begin operations in late summer 2002 and it will be headquartered in Austin with a subsidiary office in Tel Aviv.

ATI's Imageon co-processor for handhelds gets win with Toshiba PocketPC e740

ATI has just been itching to make public its wins for its Imageon 100 and now it's finally gotten the go-ahead from Toshiba, which is using the chip for the PocketPC e740. The new handheld is also using Intel's 400 MHz PXA250 processor with 64 Mbytes of RAM, a 16-bit color reflective TFT screen. It's also running Pocket PC 2002, has integrated 802.11b (Wi-Fi), wireless connectivity, a CompactFlash II slot and a SecureDigital slot.

The Imageon 100 has a 2D graphics engine, support for MPEG-4 decoding, and an LCD timing controller. ATI says the combination of the Imageon and Intel's XScale results in power savings because the Imageon is so efficient at graphics and display control and at the same time more power efficient than the XScale, which in itself is pretty stingy. Obviously, field tests are required for the real story, but better battery life, higher frame rates, and crisper display are all promised.

In addition, ATI has added support for an external projector or large monitor with its Expansion Pack software. We're getting closer and closer to being able to get on an airplane without that additional bag that holds our computer. Press release.

ATI gets big play with ID and Activision

One of the pictures we most enjoyed at E3 was seeing a bunch of the gaming faithful standing on the edges of the Microsoft Xbox booth staring rapt at the newest Doom III running on ATI's next-gen graphics chip (we dare not speak its name). What could better demonstrate the enduring appeal of the PC for gamers. ATI says their chip was chosen because it's the "most advanced, high-performance graphics architecture." Well, of course they'd say that. We'll get a chance to find out for ourselves pretty soon, the chip is scheduled to be introduced in Fall 2002. Press release.

Zoran signs on with NEC, takes advantage of encoder technology

On the heels of ESS' announced plans to work with NEC's DVD encoding technology, Zoran has also announced an agreement with NEC. In the Zoran announcement the company says they have teamed with NEC to develop "high quality, affordable DVD recording solutions for consumer electronics manufacturers producing DVD recorders," and with those words, you can expect to see new products taking advantage of low cost chips. In earlier visits with Zoran we noted that the company is hard at work on home gateway applications and home serving.

In addition, the company says they won't be neglecting the various formats for optical discs DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW.

It's going to get good now -- all the major combatants have DVD encoding as well as decoding and they're going to war. Press release.

AMD issues a second warning and riles an already jittery market

Intel chooses Cirrus' MPEG A/V codec for Intel's Media Center Reference Design

Toshiba opts for Spatializer in its Edge RD-X2 DVD recorder

And, oh yes, we almost forgot our headline. Toshiba is using the Spatializer N-2-2 software to provide audio enhancement. Spatializer and Toshiba have been working together on several DVD products.

ATI and PalmSource announce licensing deal

RealNetworks sinks in the Nielsen ratings

And here's the good news: UMC sees sales rise in '02 quarter over quarter

Microsoft shows how it's done -- embraces OS X

On the PC side, support for Quicktime is not a big priority in Redmond and text anti-aliasing is RSN (real soon now) for most PC users. More information.

Rivals join hands in DSP race for cell phones and DVD players

StarCore is moving in on TI's turf. TI, as you'll remember, is a big contributor to the Texas economy and is a leading supplier of DSPs.

The new company will begin operations in late summer 2002 and it will be headquartered in Austin with a subsidiary office in Tel Aviv.

ATI's Imageon co-processor for handhelds gets win with Toshiba PocketPC e740

ATI gets big play with ID and Activision

Zoran signs on with NEC, takes advantage of encoder technology

In addition, the company says they won't be neglecting the various formats for optical discs DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW.

It's going to get good now -- all the major combatants have DVD encoding as well as decoding and they're going to war. Press release.

The Diva sings for Gemstar

One of our favorite approaches to DVR and video-on-demand was introduced by Diva systems. The company, based in Redwood California offered services on the head-end. Customers could save movies and TV shows or they could order movies on demand. The advantage to providers is that they could offer customers thin clients to do the job since the storage as well as billing was on the head end. (In addition, it has built-in appeal for the studios interested in copy protection, etc.) Unfortunately, the idea has not caught on immediately, and the trend certainly seems to be towards thick-clients in the home. As a result, Diva has declared bankruptcy.

Gemstar, the company that owns the patents for EPG (electronic programming guide), has spotted a bargain in Diva and they've snapped it up. So let's see Gemstar has an EPG, they combine it with an entertainment-serving back end and voila, it's still a technology that hasn't caught on yet.

We're not ruling anything out. We said we liked the idea in the first place. Press release.

AMD gets new endorsements for Opteron

AMD is building an environment for its new Opteron -- their first chip to be introduced using the Hammer technology. Obviously, a hunky chip like this needs graphics, and AMD announced that 3DLabs, ATI, Matrox and SiS have committed to developing products for the Opteron chip. The Opteron will support AGP-8X graphics as well as use AMD's own HyperTransport and x86-64 technology giving the world a platform that can both advance into the new computing paradigm of 64-bit computing while maintaining a bridge to the x86 world to ensure a smooth transition for software and hardware developers—at least that's the plan.

Cirrus Logic advances in the DVD market

Cirrus Logic is making inroads with its new DVD chip the CS98100 video processor. It's latest announced design win is with TCL, a major manufacturer in southern China and one of the leading players in China's TV industry. TCL's new players, the TD-3710 and the TD3720 use Cirrus CS98100 DVD with progressive scan, DTS, HDCD, MP3 and WMA decoding. In addition, TCL has also incorporated Cirrus CS4360, a 6-channel, digital-to-analog converter

TCL says they like Cirrus' ability to offer progressive scan quality at a low price. The company also recognizes Cirrus for its ability to offer a complete reference design allowing TCL to add its own value-add features and product differentiation. Press release.

Nvidia introduces add-in card approach for digital displays

At the SID show in Boston, Nvidia introduced their new AGP riser card designed to give Nvidia's customers an easy upgrade path to digital displays. Taking advantage of the AGP port, the Digital Display Port (DDP) allows the use of an add-in card to connect digital displays such as flat panel monitors or high-definition televisions to systems using Nvidia's Nforce integrated graphics processor. Dan Vivoli, Nvidia's vice president of marketing points out in the company's press release that the AGP port on PCs with integrated graphics is often not used and represents a low cost opportunity for Nvidia's OEMs, SIs, motherboard manufacturers, etc. to add a port for a digital display. The DDP is currently designed for systems using NForce graphics -- as you might have expected. But, Nvidia says they are offering the DDP as an open standard that can be implemented royalty-free by other PC core-logic designers and manufacturers. Nvidia says their approach has won approval from ABIT, ALI/Acer Labs, ASUSTeK, Chaintech, Chrontel, Conexant Systems Inc., IDTech, Leadtek, LG/Philips, MSI, NEC/Mitsubishi, QDI, Samsung, Silicon Image, Sony, and Tatung. Press release.

What, a new Solaris? Already?

My how time flies, seems it's time for a new update to Solaris. Sun is introducing the new Solaris 9 operating environment (Solaris OE) with over 300 new features for Unix servers. The new operating system, er, environment is designed with new features to enable the easier development and deployment of web services.

Sun says they are including significant middleware elements such as Java 2, the J2EE 1.3 compliant Sun One application Server 7, the Sun One Directory server, and tools for identify management. Sun says, their new software will also include enhanced features for manageability, security, availability, and scalability.

Does it seem there are an awful lot of numbers there? The Sun One, Solaris 9, Server 7? Yeah, we thought so too. Sun says it will all become more clear at Sun's upcoming developers conference. For more information go to http://www.sun.com/suneoneevent/ Press release.

Evans & Sutherland and Lockheed come to an aggreement: it's toe-mA-toe

In an ongoing, but expensive spat Lockheed and E&S have been involved in cross-suits over a lucrative $33 million contract with the British Ministry of Defense. The two companies fell out with Lockheed claiming E&S couldn't deliver their end of the deal on time. E&S claimed that Lockheed wanted to work out a better deal for themselves. As a result of the settlement, Lockheed says they'll now describe the end of the deal between E&S and Lockheed as a termination for convenience rather than termination for cause. The two companies say they're going to explore new opportunities to work together again. No details on money was revealed. Press release.

ESS gets DVD encoder enabling it to offer products for PVR, recordable DVD and home gateways

It's official, you've got to have a DVD encoder if you're going to sell DVD. ESS has joined the ranks of companies with DVD encoders by licensing NECs.

ESS also announced record shipments of DVD chips for the month of April. The company hit the 2 million mark. Press release.

Apple introduces new servers for media clients

Think different. Think Apple, fine, but most people don't think rack mounted servers. We'll those preconceived notions are just going to have to change. Apple's new servers are called Xserve and they're designed for Apple's customers in the media business for video streaming. Apple also claims the new servers will be used as database and email servers but we suspect that even Apple doesn't see that as a big opportunity in those segments. The Xserve is a pizza-box style server costing $3,000 for a one-processor model and around $4,000 for two processors. News story.

ATI gets win for All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500 in HP Pavilion "Football Special" PCs

It's always football season somewhere, especially during a World Cup year and HP is selling their TV-equipped Football Special PC models in France and the United Kingdom to enable sports junkies to be able to check in on the game even while they're ostensibly working. And, with a computer and PC/TV board users can use the computer as a PVR and get their own instant replays. The new computer is an HP Pavilion with the All-In-Wonder Radeon, an RF remote control, and 64 Mbytes of DDR memory. Press release

Microsoft cuts Xbox prices in U.S. and Japan; follows on drop in prices in Europe

Microsoft has admitted that the Xbox has not sold like the company hoped it would and it looks like the company is going to give sales a little nudge right before E3 with a price cut that will put the machines under $200. Not at all coincidentally, Sony has also announced price cuts for the Playstation 2 so the two juggernauts are facing off at around $199. Microsoft is willing to play hardball all right but Sony has enjoyed a longer run at the higher price tag. You can bet that Microsoft isn't going to see its revenue goals for the Xbox machines so there will be a lot riding on the new games being introduced at E3 this year. Now, more than ever, the money is in software. News story

In addition, Microsoft is fine-tuning its manufacturing. Microsoft's Xbox manufacturing partner Flextronics has been building machines in Guadalajara, Mexico and in Hungary. Seems Flextronics will wind down the work being done in Hungary and move it to China. News story.

Intergraph's latest victory over Intel sends us to the dictionary to look up Pyrrhic

Intel has pledged to pay Intergraph $300 million and has signed a cross licensing agreement with longtime legal foe Intergraph. Intergraph has become a software company these days but when the fight started at least six years ago or so, the two companies were at odds over Intergraph's processor technology.

As part of the deal, Intergraph will transfer ownership of certain unrelated patents to Intel. There is a patent suit that is still going on as part of the original suit and that suit will be heard in Marshall, Texas. However, the companies have already worked out a plan depending on how that suit comes out. The companies have agreed on liquidated damages depending upon the outcome of the case, including appeal.

The liquidated damages range from zero if Intel prevails, and $150 million if Intergraph prevails and up to $250 million if Intergraph prevails on appeal. All other terms of the settlement are confidential, the companies said. Press release.

ATI introduces remote control

It seems like a small enough thing, but ATI says they discovered their new remote to be such a handy item that they thought they'd make it available to the world at large and not just customers for the new All-in-Wonder. The new remote is available through ATI's website (www.ati.com) for $49.99, the radio-frequency (RF) remote control provides access to all the multimedia functions of the ATI Radeon series graphics cards and other Microsoft Windows-based computer programs. Press release.

ATI gets win with Acer

ATI's latest win for its Mobility chip is in Acer's new Aspire 1400. The new Aspire has multimedia features including DVD playback, integrated TV-out, multi-monitor support, etc. The Mobility Radeon graphics processor comes with 16MB DDR SDRAM. The new Aspire is built using the Intel Pentium 4 processor operating from 1.7GHz; it has a 15-inch TFT display, and up to 3.0 hours of notebook battery life. Press release.

ATI gets win with HP Pavilion for home desktops

It's just the luck of the alphabet that ATI is getting their wins announced upfront but nonetheless, ATI has a new win for their All-in-Wonder that continues the companies successful effort to put the All-in-Wonder in machines coming from the factory. ALL-IN-WONDER Radeon 7500 graphics card is now available on HP Pavilion home desktop PCs via HP's configure to order which can be accessed online of via HP's retail kiosks. The All-in-Wonder combines Radio Frequency (RF) remote control, 2D and 3D graphics performance and features the Radeon 7500 graphics chip with 64 MB of Double Data Rate (DDR) memory. It's equipped with a 125-channel stereo TV tuner and features Personal Video Recorder (PVR) technology that operates like a digital replacement for the VCR letting users record TV programs and video and then play back the recordings any time or archive it on the HP's DVD+RW. Press release.

Nvidia gets win with HP Pavilion Desktop PCs

Nvidia nForce 420-D platform processors have been selected for use in Hewlett-Packard Company's HP Pavilion desktop PCs. This is Nvidia's integrated chipset product designed for AMD's CPUs and it combines features such as graphics, memory controller, networking, audio, etc. This represents a major win for the nForce, which has had a slow intro. However, the HP Pavilion is credited with being a top seller in the retail market and so the nForce is going places. Other places include Alienware, ASUStek, Compaq, Falcon Northwest, Fujitsu-Siemens, MicronPC, MSI and more. Press release.

Apple updates DVD Studio Pro 1.5 for Mac OS X

Apple has introduced the latest version of its DVD Studio Pro, the 1.5 version has been optimized for Max OS X. The OS X advantage gives the program the ability to do MPEG encoding and other work in background. Other new features include integration with Final Cut Pro that lets users set chapter markers in in Final Cut Pro that will be carried over to DVD Studio as DVD chapters.

Apple claims that DVD Studio Pro is the most widely used professional DVD authoring tool on the market. We haven't counted ourselves, so we're just passing along information. We do believe that Apple has reclaimed their video market and that Final Cut Pro has helped them do it. The company says it has shipped nearly a half a million Macintosh computers with SuperDrives and more than 2 million DVD-R media discs. The SuperDrive and iDVD and DVD Studio Pro were introduced in January 2001.

DVD Studio Pro 1.5 is shipping with Corel Photo-Paint, a coup for that company and Bias Peak DVD for Mac OS X. Using Photo-Paint users can create image files for still menus. Peak DVD is an audio editing product.

DVD Studio Pro is immediately available from Apple (www.apple.com) and it's available through resellers at $999. Upgrades are available for $199. www.apple.com/dvdstudiopro for additional details.

AMD introduces its first Alchemy Au1100 Processor

Two months after its acquisition of Alchemy, AMD has announced the introduction of an AMD branded Alchemy processor, the Au1100. The chip is aimed at the "non-PC mobile Internet appliance market" which includes web pads, telematics, and PDAS. The successor to the Au1000, the Au1100 includes an LCD controller and it is a 400 MHz chip that runs on 250 mWatts. AMD points out that this is half the power of the Au1000. The chip is shipping in sample quantities. In addition the Alchemy team has designed the Au1500 which is also shipping in sample quantities and will go into production in the second quarter of 2002.

Alchemy's chips are MIPS based using a MIPS32 instruction set. Alchemy adds integrated memory controllers and standard communication interfaces to enable customized SOCs for new products. The Au1100 at 400 MHz is priced at $29.50 in 10K quantities. Press release.

Rick Belluzzo leaves Microsoft plans to start his own company

Rick Belluzzo is a man of surprises. His fellow execs at HP were surprised he up and went to SGI. It was a surprise when he left SGI after a very short reign as CEO. It was a surprise that he went to Microsoft in 1999 to head the consumer electronics business, the former WebTV group. And it was a really big surprise that Belluzzo was appointed to the exalted position of President and COO. Now, in the wake of Microsoft's announced restructuring Belluzzo says he's quitting. Yes, we're surprised (well, kind of).

Microsoft's announced restructuring will make the company's business units more responsible for their P&Ls. (This often turns out to be a great way to weed out division heads.)

Belluzzo has been in charge of some high profile projects at Microsoft including the early stages of the .NET initiative, Ultimate TV (nee WebTV) and he was involved in Xbox as well. From our outside view, we saw Belluzzo maneuvering skillfully and aggressively to get the top projects in his group. If we had to guess about his future, we'd expect him to gravitate to consumer electronics. Now, if we were just reading resumes we'd figure Belluzzo would be a natural for Digeo, after all they just bought the "other" UltimateTV, Moxi. But, when Belluzzo says he's interested in starting his own company, we're inclined to believe him. He's a guy who likes to be at the top. Related story.

Jazzy Jazelle furthers the cause of ARM into next generation mobile devices

Mitsubishi has licensed the ARM926EJ-S core processor and the company says it will put the technology to work in semiconductors for new wireless products such as mobile phones and PDAs. Mitsubishi has developed its own embedded memory capacity, eRAM which it intends to team with the ARM core. The ARM92EJ-S features Java acceleration via ARM's Jazelle technology. In addition to Java acceleration the ARM926EJ-S supports several operating systems including Linux, Palm OS, Windows CE and Symbian OS. With this generation of ARM core, ARM has also offered the AMBA AHB (Advanced High-Performance Bus) on-chip interconnect and an Embedded Trace Macrocell (ETM) interface for easier development of complex SOCs.

Previously, Mitsubishi had licensed the ARM 7TDM-S. Press release.

Intel ships 2.4 GHz Pentium 4

We know you where worrying about this, but relax, the 2.4 GHz Pentium 4s are shipping. The chips codenamed Northwood are Intel's first chips to be built using the .13-process and 200mm wafers but next month Intel plans to start releasing chips built using the .13-process and the new 300mm wafers. This means more chips to the wafer and more bang for the buck for Intel and, it is hoped, for the rest of us. the 2.4 GHz is priced at $560 each in quantities of 1,000. Thus expect price drops for the last brand new chips. Intel says they have now shipped more than 10 times the number of Pentium 4S they shipped this time last year. Don't you love these games? We went back and checked. Intel announced they had shipped 1 million Pentium 4s by 1Q 2001. At least the math is easy.

What is an iPod, really?

Have you been following the stories in the news lately about the ever mutable iPod? There was one we particularly liked about a enterprising youngster who went into a computer store bopping to tunes on his iPod. He ambled over to a display machine and quick as a bunny he hooked up his iPod to a display Mac and transferred a copy of Microsoft Word to the iPod. It would have been pretty slick except the dodo got caught.

Reuters has also reported adaptations of the iPod focusing on programs that enable it to run with Windows machines. Mediafour Corp. a private software developer from West Des Moines has announced XPlay a program that enables users to connect their iPod to the PC so long as they have a Firewire connection. In addition, Joe Masters a college student at Williams College has created EphPod that enables the iPod to work with a Window machine if they also use DataViz' Mac drive reader MacOpener.

We moseyed on over to the Apple site where we found news of a new Contacts feature that lets you copy contacts from Mac OS X Address Book, the Palm Desktop, or Microsoft Entourage to your iPod.

So what is this thing really? It's a hard drive, really, but it just happens to have really nice usability features. We pray other companies learn from the success of iPod.

Since we got most of this from the Reuters story we probably should have just linked to it, but to save you the trip here are the links mentioned in that story:

http://www.mediafour.com

http://www.ephpod.com

http://www.neuron.com/jason/ipod.html

http://www.griffintechnology.com

http://www.shift.com/mmm2677/web/jgpedd/profile/profile006.asp

We also found a few sites on our own by going to Google and inputting IPod hacks. And in fact we found a site called ipodhacks, . Also check out: http://www.methodshop.com/mp3/articles/ipodhacks/

http://www.Ipodlounge.com

SonicBlue and Creative take note, it's amazing what a little branding can do.

Nvidia answers ATI with Select Builder program for US channel partners

Nvidia has indeed lost a few fractious partner to ATI's new open platform strategy. And, we have been assured by ATI's representatives that there are plenty more deals going on. In addition, ATI announced at Cebit a renewed effort at developing relationships with System Integrators, OEMs, and VARs. ATI is offering marketing dollar incentives to companies who work with ATI's AIB partners.

Likewise, Nvidia is hoping to strengthen its relationship with its U.S. partners with the launch of the Nvidia Select Builder Program. To pitch the deal to companies, Nvidia has launched the site http://selectbuilder.nvidia.com which offers marketing, sales and technical materials for Nvidia products. The company also offers co-operative marketing deals based on volume purchases of Nvidia products, access to Nvidia's newsletter and special program member announcements featuring product and promotional opportunities and sales and technical support via the web.

The company quotes executive from Alienware, ABS Technologies, and Atlas Micro as enthusiastic beneficiaries of the Select Builder program.

The heat is on. We think this could get nasty by the time Computex rolls around. There will be more deals and programs designed to win the hearts of vacillating companies as we head into the second quarter.

Cirrus gets win in Darwin Digital Jukebox

The newly announced EP7312-90 will power the new Darwin Digital Jukebox a home entertainment center from Fullplay Media. The DarWin Jukebox is CD/MP3 player and an entertainment PC says manufacturer. The box has a 20Gbyre hard drive, Ethernet connection, and RCA inputs. As reported in Techwatch xxxx, the EP7312-90 gives manufacturers because its design based on the ARM-7 90 MHz core gives it the power to encode MP3 files faster than realtime. The Cirrus design also includes support for all the digital music standards (including various copy protection approaches and Cirrus' own). Press Release.

Corel launches Designer 9 at Cebit

After the acquisition of Micrografx in October 2001, Corel has come out with a product in record time (though it's probably no record for Corel, which has always turned their acquisitions around quickly).. The new product will exist as a complementary product to Corel's flagship CorelDraw and offer technical illustration features including annotation, associative dimensions lines callouts, etc. The product also has CAD-like features such as bevels, trim, extend, etc. And it includes details. In addition, Micrografx in its ambition to become an important component in the product design cycle had added workflow features such as support for AutoCAD DWG and DXF, PDF and Macromedia Flash SWF. As might be expected in this new product, there is some overlap with some other Corel products including Picture Publisher 9, an image editor for image capture, editing, color correction and photo retouching. Corel, of course has had similar products for years. Technical illustration products have never had much luck going up against CAD products and the occasional attempt to do so has been misguided. Rather, easy to use, fast, intuitive technical illustration products make sense to designers when they can use the product in conjunction with their heavy duty design tools. The new product will ship with a SRP of $449. Press Release.

ESS adds a little high-end glitz with strategic relationship including Linn Products and Sony to add SACD

ESS is hoping to broaden its market into higher priced markets with the addition of SACD support for its DVD products and by offering a development platform built by consumer electronics manufacturer Linn. The Linn Silver Disc Engine debuted at CES 2002. It combined Sony's SACD capabilities with the ESS Vibratto. The SACD format, an alternative high quality audio format alternative to DVD Audio plays any disk including CD, SACD, Multi Channel SACD, DVD and DVD audio. It is expected that a great many next generation players will sidestep the standards battle and will support for both SACD and DVD Audio given the public's relative unenthusiastic response to a technology change for music disks. As the reference design house for the Sony and ESS design, Linn will build two standard versions, a mid-market product and a high-end product. The kits offered to manufacturers will include loader, PCBs, and software and will be available in mid-202.

Zoran shells out $5 million for stake in Hong Kong box builder with Chinese connections

Zoran has taken a stake in DVN a Hong Kong firm that builds set-top boxes for the China Cable TV market. ZVN says they're happy with the deal because a relationship with Zoran will enable them to build set-top boxes at competitive prices. Zoran, of course, is very interested in the DVD as the heart of the home entertainment system. They can learn a lot from DVM even as this furthers Zoran's reach into the Chinese market.

SGI offers to help out in the HP and Compaq merger with an alternative for customers

Looks like SGI is ready to come out and kick booty. In a feisty announcement designed to tweak its competitors who have counted the company down and out and offered alternatives, SGI has announced its own "Migration Assistance Program."

SGI is making their new MIPS/IRIX systems available to former customers of HP and Compaq with bundled software and services to enable customers to port their code to IRIX. The offer includes some free services, discounts and trade-in credits. SGI points out that HP and Compaq customers might fear being left in the lurch as the PA-RISC and Alpha lines are phased out. SGI says the program will be available for customers whether the merger goes through or not. SGI

Kaon introduces .NET viewer

While Microsoft and Sun fight it out over Java, companies are getting caught in the middle. Kaon, for example has a Java based viewer, Activate!3D. The company has also announced a compatible Activate!3D viewer for .NET assuring access to Kaon's models. Thus when the Java-less XP user encounters a Kaon model the browser retrieves the .NET program from the server which downloads, initiates, and retrieves the models to display. It's similar to the way Java works as well. It all happens on the client side in a little program. Press Release.

Apple having trouble shipping G4 flatpanel iMac. Steve Jobs, on the other hand says all is swell

In a kind of business as usual announcement Apple has told customers that the new iMacs will be delayed as a result of LCD shortages. Supplies of 15-inch, 17-inch monitors are in especially short supply and the 14-inch and 15-inch are going to notebooks in ever higher numbers. We were told at Cebit that the situation isn't going to get better this year. The short supply of iMacs is responsible for a price increase and cranky customers. In online reports from a variety of analysts say that the situation is causing conflicts in Apple's channel as supplies are going to Apple stores first. Doesn't all this sound kind of familiar?

Steve Jobs has decided to drink from the half full glass announcing high demand for Apple products and that's true too.

PanelLink Sii 164 transmitter included on VisionTek's new Xtasy Geforce 4 products

Silicon Image has a win with Visiontek. Their Sii 164 PanelLink transmitter is included in VisionTek's Nvidia Geforce 4 Xtasy line. Visiontek is claiming first to market status with the GeForce 4 products (which, these days is becoming kind of a squishy concept since the roll out of GeForce 4 products has been uneven). However, the Xtasy Ti4600 and Xtasy Ti4400 will incorporate Sii 164 PanelLink transmitters. VisionTek counts Apple, Compaq, Gateway, IBM, and Micron among its OEM customers. And, of course, the company is making a very successful play for the retail market. Silicon Image notes that the accelerating shift to LCD panels is making customers aware of the advantages of DVI and PanelLink. As an indication, the company says more than 25 million PanelLink ICs have shipped to date. Press Release.

ATI signs up two new board customers from Hong Kong

ATI has gone to Hong Kong and signed up two new customers for the Radeon line. Hightech Information Systems Limited and Sapphire Technology will develop products using ATI chips. Sapphire is going exclusively with ATI. Hightech is adding ATI to its lineup. As we look back through the records we note that the Sapphire relationship has been announced before, but we had not heard about an exclusive arrangement. The scorecared so far: ATI now has Gigabyte, CP Technology, Jetway, Sapphire, HighTech and Transcend. Nvidia has Asustek, MSI, Abit, Chaintek, Chun Yun, Leadtek, ProLink. Press Release.

Creative acquires 3DLabs

Have your coffee and sit down. 3DLabs announced that they are being acquired by Creative Technology. Creative will purchase 3Dlabs stock at $3.60 per share. As of this writing the company's stock is at $2.95 (before market opening on Monday). Creative says it will spend $103.7 million to buy 3DLabs using $1.20 in cash and $2.40 in stock. As you might know, Creative already owned a sizeable chunk of Creative and in this deal Creative will acquire the other 72% it didn't own.

3DLabs reported their fourth quarter earnings and continued their up and down performance. This quarter was down, way down and the company reported a pro forma loss of $8.9 million compared to a loss of $1 million a year ago. So far, the closest the company has gotten to profitable in the past couple of years has been on a pro forma basis.

It's been almost two years now since Creative happily announced it's withdrawal from the Graphics add-in-board business. Then the company's European branch surprised observers by ramping up a graphics board line using Nvidia chips—we hear that there were some in Creative who were surprised by their European colleagues' move as well. Now, Creative is going back in the business with the acquisition of 3DLabs a purveyor of high end graphics boards for workstations. Not exactly a natural fit for Creative, which has been fashioning itself as a consumer electronics company. Is Creative just protecting its investment? Could be, but 3DLabs also has considerably more going on than high end graphics boards. There have already been leaks about 3DLabs' new killer family of chips that's just too good to reserve for the high end. Creative could supply the needed capital and to get a new line of graphics out into the market. Press Release

3DLabs in Dell Precision Workstations 530

The Dell Precision Workstation 530 is powered by Intel's new Xeon processors with the 860 chipset and a 400 MHz system bus. They're graphically powered by the Wildcat III 6110. The Wildcat III 6110 supports OpenGL 1.3 and OpenML 1.0 as well as multi-texturing, bump mapping, and cube mapping and it has twin DVI-I outputs for dual analog, digital or mixed displays with Windows 2000 or Windows XP. The 3DLab folks have loaded the new Wildcat IIIs with memory. The 6110 has 128 MBytes of texture memory, 64 Mbytes frame buffer and 16 Mbytes of DirectBurst memory. It adds up to 208 Mbytes of onboard memory. Press Release.

VisionTek goes to Europe

VisionTek opened up a European operation just so they could be first into Europe with a GeForce4 Ti4600. Well, who else is going to do it? Guillemot/Hercules have turned their attentions to ATI (with what's left of the STMicro Kryo boards filling out the low end). Elsa has their own problems battling for solvency at the moment. We're expecting an announcement from Gainward within seconds, but so far VisionTek has won the announcement sweepstakes with their entry into a brand new market. VisionTek began shipping its Xstasy GeForce 4 Ti 4600 AGP graphics accelerators into Germany and the UK on March 1st. VisionTek announced Wortmann AG and Maxcom GmbH of Germany and Ma and Machine Ltd in the UK as the first retailers to stock the new Xstasy boards.

The Xtasy GeForce4 Ti 4600 carries an MSRP of 549 Euros and comes with 128 Mbytes of 640 MHz DDR. Coming up next VisionTek says they'll ship the GeForce4 Ti 4400 with a MSRP of 449 Euros. This board carries 128 Mbytes of 550 MHz DDR. The GeForce 4 MX 440 is priced at 199 Euros and the GeForce4 MX420 at 169 Euros. VisionTek thinks they have the formula that's going to beat out the competition and a key part of that strategy is to get to market first. Funny, we've heard the same thing from Gainward. Brace yourselves. Press Release.

ATI chalks up another Mobile win—this time with new Compaq notebooks with Mobile Pentium 4

Compaq will use the Mobility Radeon 7500 graphics processor for the EvoNotebook N800 and Presario 2800. Both notebooks are built using Intel's new Mobile Pentium 4 processor and the Radeon 7500 with 64 Mbytes of 128-bit DDR memory. ATI's Radeon 7500 processor also includes DVD playback, integrated TV-out, multi-monitor support and ATI's Powerplay power management technology. The EvoNotebook N800 is designed for business users and offers offers a choice of 15-inch panels to UXGA+ resolution and has various optical drive options including a DVD/CD-RW combo drive and USB 2.0 support. It has a 60 Gbyte hard drive. The Presario 2800 has a 30 Gbyte hard drive, a 15-inch SXGA panel, DVD/CD-RW combo drive, 802.11b Multiport and USB 2.0 support. Press Release.

Genesis Microchip Inc. wins VMLabs in bankruptcy auction

The too-far-ahead-of-its-time VMLabs has found itself in the hands of up and comer Genesis Microchip. Genesis has agreed to acquire "substantially all of the assets" including patents, trademarks and intellectual property of the company for $13.6 million in cash. Genesis is after VM Labs MPEG Decoder technology. Amnon Fisher, Genesis' President and CEO says the decoder will go nicely with the company's newly acquired Faroudja DCDI progressive scan technology acquired in the acquisition of Sage completed just a month or so ago. VM Labs' chip is more than a decoder, the company hoped to build their company on the basis of the Nuon, a programmable 128-bit multimedia processor. The company was selling their products to companies such as Samsung, Toshiba, and Motorola for set-top boxes with extra features including game play and movies with zoom, etc. The added technology never caught on, but the programmable Nuon gives Genesis plenty of options. Can Genesis barge into the crowded and getting more crowded DVD market? It's not going to be easy even with the Sage properties. Press Release

More on CD copy protection

As we reported, the legal battles over copy protection are just getting started and so far they seem to be going well for those who would like to see copy protected CDs clearly labeled (if the things have to be sold at all). As it turns out, copy protected disks are being Released in relatively large numbers but they're not labeled as such. Hilary Rosen, President of the Recording Association of America, and a cheerleader for the most unyielding elements of the music industry was quoted in a New York Times story. "If technology can be used to pirate copyrighted content, shouldn't technology likewise be used to protect copyrighted content?"

It can and it does Hilary, but people need to know what they're getting when they're buying CDs and so far, very few copy-protected CDs are labeled as such.

Interestingly, we think, is that some of the companies who have made the biggest pitch for copy protected CDs are those same companies who announced plans to build some kind of online service—Vivendi, Bertelsmann, etc. We had hopes these companies would get it and offer downloadable music via a subscription service or reasonable download fees. (Admittedly, though, we hadn't seen anything promising from these companies.)

Weirder still, we read in a that same New York Times story that Sony Music Music has Released something like 70 titles with anti-piracy technology in Europe while Sony Electronics has come out against copy-protected CDs taking a stand much like Philips that states it's a digression from the spec and can't be guaranteed to play on all CD players.

The holders of content seen to have driven themselves mad worrying about users stealing their stuff and they're blaming piracy on declines in record sales. We think it's possible that sales of CDs have declined because they're offering us crummy music. But we also concede that digital music will have an effect on sales of CDs if it hasn't already.

Apparently, when Disney Chief Michael Eisner testified before Congress he singled out Apple computer for blame in fostering music piracy. How's that? You ask. Yes, Eisner says that Apple's Rip, Mix, Burn campaign fosters piracy (Macworld story). We don't get it, as far as we know, it's still perfectly legal to rip music from your CDs, mix titles on the computer and burn them to a CD or even an MP3 player.

What's important about all this, we believe, is that the music industry is making it clear that they've never really gotten over losing the war over home recording of cassettes and they'd like to fire up a time machine through the magic of technology (because the mojo of the courts hasn't helped them very much) and go back to those halcyon days before easy home recording. And, not only does this hold true for music, it goes triple for movies.

Several sites are tracking these issues including Fat Chuck's and EuroRights.

In addition to Sony and Philips, Sonicblue has weighed in heavily on this issue since they recognize a threat to their livelihood when they see one. And, as we note a little further down this page, the Electronic Freedom Foundation, EFF, is making this a cause celebre. To weigh in, sign their petition.

Nvidia announces NVDVD—DVD Player/Decoder for PC Home Theater

It wouldn't be an understatement to say that Nvidia surprised several in the DVD industry with the announcement of a DVD Player/Decoder built specifically for Nvidia-based products. The company announced the new software player, NVDVD at IDF. The player includes Dolby Digital Support with Dolby Surround technology for users with multi-channel sound cards. For users who want to use an external audio processor NVDVD can output digital audio via a S/PDIF connector for external processing of Dolby Digital, DTS, MPEG audio, or LCPM (linear pulse code modulation) audio formats. The player supports Nvidia's Nview for multi-monitor capabilities allowing DVD playback on one screen and Windows on another. It supports digital vibrance control, frame capture, and auto resume if the video was stopped suddenly or unexpectedly. NVDVD supports all standard DVD APIs including DirectShow, DirectDraw, DirectSound, DirectX Video Acceleration.

The war against ATI continues apace. As we said, there were some who were surprised the Nvidia went this way on their own and of course, there were companies who were hoping to license their DVD technology to the graphics giant. (They were among the most surprised.) On one hand, it's a sign of Nvidia's strength that they could do it themselves. However, we wonder, because we were told to wonder, about how vendors will react to software that's hardware specific. ATI has opted for Ravisent's software. And there's still the two non-aligned vendors, Intervideo and Cyberlink. Press Release.

PNY says they're first to market with GeForce 4 TI 4600

The Verto GeForce4 Ti 4600 graphics card from PNY Technologies is shipping to retail stores. In addition, PNY is including Star Wars Starfighter by LucasArts with the Verto GeForce Ti 4600; a pair of 3D glass from i-O Display with the GeForce4 Ti 4400; Ballistics by Grin with Verto GeForce Mx 440; and 10 multi-colored PNY brand CD-Rs with the Verto GeForce 4 MX 420. It's a "while supplies last" kind of deal. The Parsippany, New Jersey based PNY sells Nvidia based graphics boards exclusively. Prices range from $79.99 to $399.99.

Compaq goes for ATI's Mobility Radeon 7500 in new Pentium 4 notebooks

Compaq's new EvoNotebook N800 and Presario 2800 notebooks will put Intel's brand new Mobile Pentium 4 processors to work as well as ATI's Mobility Radeon 7500 graphics processor. the new notebooks will use the 1.7 GHz Pentium 4-M processor, 30 Gbytes hard drive, 15-inch SXGA+. It will have a DVD/CD-RW combo drive and USB 2.0, 802.11b MultiPort support.

ATI Technologies gets win in IBM Intellistation Workstation

IBM is continuing its long standing relationship with the Fire GL line of graphics (after all there was a time when FGL bought their chips from IBM). IBM will use the Fire GL 8800 in its newest workstations, the IntelliStation E Pro and M Pro professional workstations systems. The Fire GL has support for OpenGL, of course, and also DirectX 8.1 which includes ATI's Smartshader and Truform. It comes with 128 Mbytes of DDR memory, DVD video playback and support for 3D resolutions up to 2048 x 1536 with 32-bit color, digital flat panels with an integrated TMDS transmitter to support DVI to 1600 x 1200), and multiple display support.

The Fire GL 8800 is the standard graphics board in five of IBM's IntelliStation models including the IntelliStation E Pro model 621453U and IntelliStation M Pro models 622915U, 622925U, 622945U and 622955U. ATI and IBM report that these systems, in mid-range configurations can be had for prices ranging from $2,929 to $3,659. Press Release.

Alias/Wavefront offers Maya Personal Learning Edition as free download

If you've been hankering to give Maya a try, Alias/Wavefront is offering you that opportunity with a free personal use, non-commercial version—the Maya Personal Learning Edition. Checkout www.aliaswaveront.com/freemaya. In addition, the company has opened up a resource center for students with online access to learning materials, discussion forums, and content exchanges. The resource center is available at www.aliaswavefront.com/maya/ple/resource.

What's in it for Alias/Wavefront? The company is building a community for its software that heretofore has existed primarily in the rarified strata of professional 3D development software. The company is taking a page from NaN, Not a Number, the brave company that has built an enormous user base for this kind of software, over 250,000 registered users. It's a tough business but acts of kindness, like giving away the software to earnest students can pay off if there's a follow-up plan to convert those students to customers. Press Release.

Blender 3D Media Platform launches handheld initiative at 3GSM congress in Cannes

While we're on the subject of Blender, we note that the company has announced its Blender 3D Media Platform that enables consumers to view and play 3D media applications including graphics and movies on GPRS and UMTS mobile devices. The company says it has deals in the works with leading European UMTS license holders..

Blender has also identified the mobile platform as their logical next step. Not only can they help find gainful employment for those 250,000 registered—but not necessarily paying—users, but Blender has an inherent advantage in this particular field of combat because Blender has a very compact player. The Blender 3D Media Platform, says the company, is compatible with any color enabled GPRS or UMTS devices and streams images in JPEG, PNG, or MPEG4 to a client.

Blender's 3D engine runs on Unix servers. Multiple engines can run on the server and each engine can service up to 50 streams to clients concurrently. Press Release.

Tom's Hardware announces Readers Choice Awards and partnership with The Register

Tom's hardware has completed their Readers' Choice survey and just as you might expect, Tom's readers don't always root for the front runner. The Athlon XP won for best processor while the ATI Radeon 8500 won for best high end graphics board. Nvidia won the best graphics chip category with the GeForce3 Ti series. When it comes to chipsets VIA scored a hit with Tom's users who voted for the Apollo KT266A chipset. Asus won the nod for best motherboard supplier and the Maxstor DiamondMax Plus 60 won the award for best hard drive.

In other news Tom's Hardware is partnering with The Register to create the Register USA. They pledge to bring the Register's same hard biting news reporting to readers with a U.S. slant. Tom's Hardware

Toshiba opts for ATI's Mobility Radeon graphics processor

ATI's mobile chip is a solid performer for the Canadian comeback company. It has cemented its relationship with Toshiba with a deal for the Satellite 1905 Notebook PC. Toshiba is using the Mobility Radeon with 16 Mbytes DDR RAM for its new notebook powered by the 1.6 GHz Pentium 4. The Satellite 1905 Notebook also includes a 30 byte hard drive and 256 Mbytes RAM as well as a DVD-ROM/CD_RW multi-function drive.

My how notebooks have changed, and when ATI is doing the bragging they make sure to mention the Radeon's low power abilities in the notebook space—comes in handy when you're playing games and watching DVDs in the coffee shop. Press Release.

PNY says they're first to market with GeForce 4 TI 4600

Compaq goes for ATI's Mobility Radeon 7500 in new Pentium 4 notebooks

ATI Technologies gets win in IBM Intellistation Workstation

Alias/Wavefront offers Maya Personal Learning Edition as free download

If you've been hankering to give Maya a try, Alias/Wavefront is offering you that opportunity with a free personal use, non-commercial version -- the Maya Personal Learning Edition. Checkout www.aliaswaveront.com/freemaya. In addition, the company has opened up a resource center for students with online access to learning materials, discussion forums, and content exchanges. The resource center is available at www.aliaswavefront.com/maya/ple/resource.

Tom's Hardware announces Readers Choice Awards and partnership with The Register

Toshiba opts for ATI's Mobility Radeon graphics processor

My how notebooks have changed, and when ATI is doing the bragging they make sure to mention the Radeon's low power abilities in the notebook space -- comes in handy when you're playing games and watching DVDs in the coffee shop. Press release.

Blender 3D Media Platform launches handheld initiative at 3GSM congress in Cannes

Blender has also identified the mobile platform as their logical next step. Not only can they help find gainful employment for those 250,000 registered -- but not necessarily paying -- users, but Blender has an inherent advantage in this particular field of combat because Blender has a very compact player. The Blender 3D Media Platform, says the company, is compatible with any color enabled GPRS or UMTS devices and streams images in JPEG, PNG, or MPEG4 to a client.

Blender's 3D engine runs on Unix servers. Multiple engines can run on the server and each engine can service up to 50 streams to clients concurrently. Press release.

EFF revs up campaign against copy-protected CDs; Philips questions whether a copy protected CD is really a CD

CDs with copy protection? The controversy was opened up at CES late last year when a petition was distributed on the floor and in the press room calling for the music studios to stop introducing CDs with copy protection that would prevent them from being ripped to the PC. So far the only two CDs released with copy protection are Charley Pride's most recent album, "A Tribute to Jim Reeves," and Universal Music Group's More Fast and the Furious (maybe the record industry was testing the waters with CDs that nobody would want to copy in the first place).

Philips has weighed into the discussion with the contention that a copy protected CD is a actually an infringement on Philips' technology because it doesn't function according to the spec.

The EFF is also getting involved with a petition campaign on their site. They want copy-protected CDs clearly marked as such, segregated in stores, and basically to just go away as a very bad idea. If consumers get the drift of all this we believe they too will line up behind Philips and EFF to nip the idea in the bud. See EFF petition.

On the legal front: a suit was filed in Marin County by consumer Karen DeLise against Fahrenhaeit Entertainment and its label, Music City Records, and Sunncomm, the company which developed the "Cloque" technology. Seems this technology goes beyond pure copy protection. Users can't play the CD in their computers unless they enter personal information and then they can download a digital version of the CD. According to the suit, Sunncomm's technology tracks consumers' listening habits and their downloads, and can disseminate this data as well as identifying information. Furthermore, the downloaded digital files of "A Tribute to Jim Reeves," aren't compatible with MP3 players. The legal beef is that people aren't told about any of these "features" upfront when they buy the CD and they can't opt out or control the use of their information.

The suit was settled on February 11, 2002 and the defendants, Fahrenheit/Music City and Sunncomm have pledged to add labeling on "Charley Pride -- A Tribute to Jim Reeves" to warn users of the CD's particular limitations when it comes to playing CDs including the news that the downloadable version isn't compatible with CD-Rippers or MP3 players. In addition the companies are prohibited from using personal information in any way without permission.

So far, it's still legal to create copies of music for personal use and the EFF and others would like to keep it that way. See settlement document.

Motorola takes stake in Codeonline Oy

Motorola Ventures is taking flyer on Finnish game distributors Codeonline. The company licenses and distributes games in 20 countries. This is just one deal on the part of Motorola Ventures which made roughly $50 million in investments last year and is looking at other deals fore wireless gaming. Apparently, Codeonline's claim to fame is a wireless version of "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" In addition the company has a version of "Trivial Pursuit," which Motorola hopes will be a big success. The deal will help Codelonline speed development of products for Motorola mobile networks. They're expecting product to ship late this year and early next and Europe is the hot spot. Press release

IBM chooses ATI's Radeon 7000 for NetVista PCs

Just because you're using a network terminal it doesn't mean you can't have good graphics especially for those company videos, watching web casts, or creating documents. IBM has chosen to use Radeon 7000s, ATI's basic board with 64 Mbyes of SDR memory and ATI's Hyper Z and Pixel Tapestry 3D rendering. Press release.

When is a console a home entertainment gateway?

In the future, all game console may be a gateway. Sony is adding to the confusion already stirred up by Microsoft with the hard drive equipped/Internet connected X-Box. Sony is introducing broadband network service for the PlayStation2 called PlayStation BB service and it will become available in April. The option is not for the faint of heart, would be users will have to sign up with ADSL or CATV Internet providers affiliated with Sony and they'll have to rent buy the Broadband Navigator, a special adapter for the Playstation from the ISP. The Broadband Navigator is equipped with a LAN interface and 40 Gbytes of HDD allowing users to download games and also music, videos, e-mail, instant messaging, etc. Sony President Ken Kutaragi said the pricing model for Playstation BB has been inspired by the i-mode which let's content providers develop the fee-charging system. The fee for content can be less than a dollar in some cases.

The cost of a brand new PlayStation2 and the Broadband Navigator is about 50,000 yet or around $379. There will also be a monthly fee and a fee for some content. The ISP will collect 20% from the fee that users pay. The affiliated ISPs for PS BB include NTT Communications Corp. (OCN), NEC Corp. (Biglobe), Nifty Corp. (@nifty), Yahoo Japan Corp. (Yahoo BB), Plala Networks Inc. (Plala), NTT Broadband Initiative Inc. (Broba), and others. The CATV partner is Aii Communications. Sony says they cover about 70% of the broadband users in Japan with those ISPs.

Sony says they will also offer optional services with the Broadband Navigator that lets users use it as a HDD recorder or home server.

SGI introduces new processors and graphics

For the first time in quite a few quarters, SGI has raised its income line to the positive side of the bar. They've done it by cutting costs and selling interest in a Japanese division as well increasing sales. Is this the turnaround? SGI execs would like to think so and they're excited about new products they hope will keep the company in the black. The company has introduced the new MIPS R14000A processor, a 600 MHz chip that increases performance by up to 37% over early processors. SGI says this new chip features an efficient design that offers customers more power at reduced cost. SGI says the MIPS R14000A processor operates within 15 watts of power compared to other 64-bit chips that draw more than 100 watts.

One of the first places the new chips will find work is in new graphics workstations, the Octane2 workstation powered by SGI's VPro V12 and V10. These new systems are being offered at the same price as earlier models using the earlier 400 MHz or 300 MHz processors. And those machines with VPro V6 graphics have been marked down 13%.

In addition, SGI is offering their new R14000A processors in the Fuel Visual workstations and for the Origin 3000 server series and the Onyx 3000 series.

The R14000A processor is available immediately in Octane2, Origin 3000 servers series, and Onyx 3000 servers through SGI direct and Solution Provider Sales channels.

The price? SGI offers the example of an Octane2 configured with a 550 MHz processor, 2 Mbytes L2 cache, V10 graphics and 256 Mbytes system memory, 18 Gbyte disk drive and 21-inch monitor at a price of $20,995. The processor upgrade is priced at $5,500 and is also available immediately. Dual processor upgrades will be available in March for $11,000 U.S. The entry price for a dual Processor Origin 3000 series server is under $60,000. Press release.

Mitsubishi introduces MPEG2 compression technique and LSI designed to save disk space

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has come up with a new approach to MPEG-2. The new technique recompresses the MPEG-2 enabling almost the same level of quality video to be saved in half the original volume. In satellite broadcasting, the company says, the MPEG-2 stream is transmitted at an encoding speed of 18Mbps or 24Mpbs. Mitsubishi's further compression enables MPEG-2 data streaming at a speed of 9.8Mbps. The company demonstrated their MPEG-2 technology with an LSI decoder playing back 1080i image data encoded using the new technology. The end result is a 2 hour HDTV movie can be stored on a 9.4 Gbyte DVD disc.

The new technology was introduced in an article published on AsiaBizTech. Mitsubishi says the technology can be applied to DVD video recorders, HDD video recorders etc. The company says the technology can also be applied to products such as authoring tools. The company is currently preaching about the optimization of encoding parameters including motion-compensation (MC), discrete cosine transform (DCT) and quantization. The company is developing MPEG-2 encoder LSIs with the new encoding technology and the company expects to manufacture them in 2004. That's the date Mitsubishi is pinning on the calendar for recordable DVD technologies to take off.

Mitsubishi has also pioneered D-VHS, video tape capable of storing HD video where DVD does not yet have the capacity. The studios are interested in D-VHS because it has better copy protection than the CSS currently used on DVDs. D-VHS recorders are just now coming to market.

3Dlabs unleashes the Wildcat III; attacks the Quadro 2

The wait is over for the newest product in 3Dlabs' Wildcat line. 3Dlabs has introduced the Wildcat III 210 and the Wildcat III 6110 graphics accelerators using the 3Dlabs third-generation Wildcat technology. The engineers at 3Dlabs have integrated the geometry engine and the raster engine onto a single chip using what they are pleased to call ParaScale technology. The approach boosts geometry performance by 65% and doubles polygon performance and on-board memory bandwidth compared to earlier Wildcat products. Now, here's where you hold onto your hats—the new architecture supports up to 416 Mbytes of on-board memory.

The new boards are available for Windows 2000 and Windows XP platforms, and 3Dlabs promises to have support for Windows NT in future driver releases.

In the workstation world, trademarked terms like ParaScale are nice but they're nowhere near as important as application certification, and the Wildcat III comes to market with certifications for Dassault Systemes CATIA, PTC ProEngineer and EDS Solid Edge. In addition, 3Dlabs cites performance increases in anti-aliasing performance that will enhance the use of Discreet 3ds max, Alias/Wavefront, Maya and Softimage. Press release

Cats and Dogs: Nvidia introduces GeForce 4 with new "Unleash the beast" slogan. No injuries reported.

Nvidia president and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said, "The last place you're going to get information about the GeForce 4 is at a launch event." And it's true that between Nvidia's own pre-briefings, internal leaks and broken embargoes, the news about the GeForce 4 is definitely out. For those of you who didn't catch it, the GeForce 4 was introduced across markets including the PC, the Mac and notebook computers.

The product line includes the GeForce Titanium and it will be included in three configurations: 4600, 4400 and 4200. The GeForce MX GPU is the mainstream product, and it will be available as the 460, 440 and 420. Finally, the GeForce 4 440 Go and 420 Go Mobile chips were also introduced.

Nvidia is positioning the new chips beyond graphics as the company positions themselves as a platform. Citing the development of the nForce and the MCP (media and communications processor) part, the company talks about the GeForce 4 as a multimedia processor as well as a graphics processor. Nvidia has incorporated a video processor in the GeForce 4, and also they have built-in digital interfaces for LCD monitors. The nView Display technology enables multidisplay capabilities with two DACs and two TMDS transmistters and supports individual adjustments for the displays. The GeForce 4 enables users to use two digital displays or combine CRTs, televisions and flat panels.

However, the key feature of the GeForce 4 is graphics. The company has improved its anti-aliasing, which they now call Accuview Antialiasing. Nvidia says there's no performance hit with anti-aliasing, so gamers leave it on without sacrificing frame rates. New features for nView are graphical, too, including the ability to display one window over another with transparency. In a demo, Nvidia's Senior Director of Desktop Systems, Tony Tomasi, demonstrated the feature in use with two spreadsheets, allowing users to compare trend lines. We're not sure what else you'd use it for, but we thought it was pretty cute.

Lightspeed Memory Architecture II is Nvidia's memory interface for 128-bit DDR. Included in LMAII is Nvidia's improved Z-Occlusion culling, which enables the processor to determine which pixels are visible and only process those pixels. Thus, the use of the memory bandwidth is more efficient. Also, Nvidia has added 4:1 compression for information stored in the Z-buffer. Nvidia's LMA II features four memory caches, called Quad Cache, giving the rendering pipeline fast access.

The GeForce 4 Ti is shipping, and boards will are expected to be available within weeks. Nvidia says their OEM customers will be shipping in a month or so. Press release

Apple first out of the gate with PowerMac G4

At Nvidia's extravaganza for their new G4, Jen-Hsun Huang credited Apple's engineering staff with getting the first implementation of the new G4 out on an AIB even before Nvidia did it themselves. We don't know what makes us so cynical, but we're willing to bet that there was a bit of negotiation between Apple and Nvidia that helped the process along. Apple really, really likes to be first, and it could just be that Nvidia thought that was a small enough price to pay to continue their encroachment into the Apple line, territory that once was ATI's alone.

Whatever.

Apple is introducing new GeForce Titanium boards for the "Pentium-crushing" Power Mac G4 on an AGP 4X card with 128 Mbytes of DDR SDRAM. It will ship next month. And with this announcement we have another bone thrown to the professional market. Apple says the Power Mac G4 with the Mac OS and Nvidia's new GeForce 4 Titanium combine in a workstation that's perfect for making or playing games. Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide product marketing, says "Creative professionals and gamers alike are going to enjoy the amazing leap in 3D realism."

So, there's another one for you guys who felt so left out at the Macworld extravaganza. It's becoming clear that Apple is not neglecting this market that was once so key to Apple's success, and, in fact, the company may well have been waiting to get a few ducks in a row, one big duck being the Gigahertz PowerPC processor and the other big quacker being the GeForce 4 Titanium.

The Nvidia GeForce4 Titanium add-in-boards will be available as a build-to-order option for the Power Mac G4 through the Apple Store. Apple says the GeForce 4 Titanium option is an additional $250 with the dual 1 GHZ and 933 MHz Power Mac G4 systems. It will be a $350 option with the 800 MHz Power Mac G4. Users can upgrade their machine with an AIB available this spring for $299. Press release

AMD buys Alchemy and goes MIPS

AMD announced plans to acquire Alchemy Semiconductor. Alchemy builds low-power MIPS-based microprocessors, and they've been targeting the Internet access market. The company has just completed the development of the Au1000, which started shipping to customers in the fall, and are sampling the AU1500. The AU1000 is available in 266 MHz, 400 MHz and 500 MHz grades, and the Au1500 will come in 333 MHz, 400 MHz and 500 MHz.

The two companies say they expect the acquisition to be complete during the first first quarter of 2002.

With the announcement of the acquisition, AMD says they are forming the PCS (Personal Computing Solutions) Group to advance development of the technology for network access products, gateways, STBs or, as AMD puts it, non-PC connectivity devices. The group is being led by Billy Edwards, who will become VP and General Manager of the new business unit. Alchemy founders Rich Witek and Greg Hoeppner are staying with the company, and they'll work for Edwards. Witek says he's delighted to get the resources to continue development of the Alchemy line of processors. As you might have read, the web access market isn't exactly taking off like a rocket.

MIPS is pretty delighted with this turn of events, and they grandly welcome AMD into the MIPS family. It's worth remembering, however, that Witek is also credited with the StrongARM design. Given the dominance of the ARM technology in the cell phone market, Witek's StrongARM competence is very significant. Press release

ATI rejiggers its lineup and introduces Radeon 8500 LE; 128 Mbytes DDR for everyone

ATI is countering Nvidia's GeForce 4 announcement with a refresh of its Radeon product line and new pricing. ATI is offering Radeon 8500LE with 128 Mbytes of DDR at $199. ATI says it's the only graphics card company to offer full hardware DirectX 8.1 support to mainstream users. ATI says It's a matter of money. Mainstream boards cost between $100 and $199 and not between $200 and $299 like some other companies mentioned on this very same page.

In addition, ATI is offering the Radeon 8500 with 128 Mbytes of DDR and keeping the price the same, $299. The Radeon 8500 has multimonitor support for three displays with VGA, DVI-I and S-Video connectors. The Radeon 7500 is available for $149. Press release

And the beat goes on; AMD introduces Athlon 4 1500+ for notebooks

AMD's latest processor is for notebooks. The new mobile processor is the Athlon 4 1500+ featuring QuantiSpeed and AMD PowerNow! Technology. The new part is built at the Dresden Fab 30 using AMD's .18-micron process.

As you know, this new processor may be named the Athlon 4 1500+, but in reality it is an Athlon 4 1.33 Ghz chip. We realize that AMD is going to make it harder and harder for us to find (or remember) what the actual clock speeds are on these chips as they publish the name and not the megahertz, but we'll keep trying to keep it straight. Not that we don't agree wholeheartedly with AMD about the necessity of defining performance as opposed to MHz, but we'd like to keep the record as straight as we can.

A case in point: we see that Apple, in announcing their new G4s based on 1.2 Ghz PowerPC chips, just ups and says the PowerPC 1 Ghz functions as good as a 2 GHz Pentium 4. It looks to us like benchmarking is going to become very important once again as companies make difficult to substantiate claims. Press release

Toshiba licenses ARM92EJ-S with Jazelle for mobile products

Toshiba has re-upped with ARM to use the ARM92EJ-S core for wireless products. The company first licensed the ARM7TDMI core and the ARM4946E-S core, which it has used to develop embedded microprocessors.

The ARM96EJ-S, as you might remember, includes Jazelle technology, which accelerates Java execution up to eight times as a software-based JVM (Java Virtual Machine). Other features cited by Toshiba and ARM are the core's support for various operating systems including Linux, Palm OS, Windows CE and Symbian. In this latest implementation of the ARM technology comes ease of design features such as selectable size instruction and data caches, and tightly coupled memory interfaces for instructions and data .For the development of SOCs, the new ARM design includes an Embedded Trace Macrocell (ETM) interface and an AMBA AHB (Advanced High Performance Bus) on chip interconnect interface. Press release

On the standards front: Studios announce plans to release D-VHS videotapes

The Studios have come out in favor of D-VHS for secure recording. So far, Artisan Entertainment, Dreamworks SKG, Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Studios announced that they will use JDV's D-Theater version of D-VHS. The advantages of D-VHS are many. D-VHS tapes have a 44-Gbyte capacity, allowing them to hold up to four hours worth of high-definition content and more than 50 hours of standard-definition television. Better yet, from the studios' point of view, D-VHS incorporates HDCP (High Definition Copy Protection) to prevent tapes from being copied again. The studios have warmed up considerably to HDCP, believing it to be safer from hacks than CSS. In addition, the huge size of the uncompressed content means that transmitting data over the Internet today is profoundly impractical—another means of copy protection.

D-VHS machines can play older VHS tapes. Currently, the prices for D-VHS tapes are a tad high at $10, and the latest quoted price for machines is $1,999. The studios say pre-recorded tapes could run $30 to $40

Equator adds on to its MAP-BSP-15 line, announces design platform

Equator is building on its line of video-adept products in the MAP-BSP-15 line. The programmable MAP-BSP-15 is capable of handling multiple streams of video at various bit rates with support for all compression algorithms. It's designed for unified memory designs with a host processor. The MAP-BSP-15 includes SDRAM and PCI interfaces. The newest DSPs follow on the the company's MAP-BSP-15 (a 300-MHz chip) with a MAP-BSP-15-350, a 350-MHz chip, and the MAP-BSP-15-400, a 400 MHz chip. With this lineup, says Equator, they've got products for a wide range of products for the video imaging market.

The new chips, the MAP-BSP-15-400 and the MAP-BSP-15-350, can be used in applications such as video servers, high-end video conferencing, media gateway servers and broadband head-end equipment. The chips are low power with ranges of 1.2 volts for the MAP-BSP-15, 1.35 volts for the MAP[BSP]15-350 and 1.5 volts for the MAP-BSP-15-400. All the chips in the MAP-BSP-15 line are pin-compatible.

The MAP-BSP-15 line is being manufactured by TSMC. The 300-MHz chip is available in sample quantities now, and the 350 MHz and 400 MHz chips will be available in February.

So, these days no sooner do you say your product is perfect for a certain application than you have to prove it with a demonstration platform. As the next step of their MAP-BSP-15 rollout, Equator is announcing a broadband video-on-demand reference platform for low-bit-rate VOD products designed for IP-based systems. It enables small businesses to bring their VOD operations in house and enables large companies to scale their systems. Equator says they're talking to OEMs, broadband operators and service providers. The BOM for the design is under $200, giving customers an economical option for VOD products. Press release

Compaq gets inside the Avid System

Avid is going to be building its new systems on Compaq Evo workstations. The deal is the result of a dedicated effort by Compaq's Workstation group. The Compaqs have been optimized for video work with improvements to the PCI interface and to the storage architecture. The video systems sold by Avid take advantage of every slot and every bay available in Compaq's Evo Workstation systems, and Compaq takes pride in their direct work with Avid to make sure the hardware architecture and Avid's software are complementary. Avid is building on the W8000 Evo Workstation using a 1.7-GHz Intel Xeon procressor. It's available in a variety of configurations including multiprocessor and single processor.

The first machines being introduced by Avid are the Avid Symphony, Media Composer and Avid Xpress. And these systems will be available through specialized resellers, including Amherst Corporate Computer Sales and Solutions, Avnet Applied Computing Solutions and the CARA Group. Press release

VIA ready to bust out with DDR333

VIA will host the DDR333 Summit 2002 at Taipei International Convention Centre on February 20th. Participating companies include AMD Micron Technology, Samsung Semiconductor, Hynix Semiconductor and Infineon Technologies. Desi Rhoden, president of Advanced Memory International, is a featured speaker and will give an overview of the DDR333 specification and validation standards.

More info. www.via.com.tw/en/ddr/ddr.jsp

ESS introduces audio and video encoding

ESS is developing a new chip with audio and video encoding capability based on licensed technology. The chip is dubbed the ES6610 MPEG audio and video encoder, and it's scheduled to arrive in the second quarter of 2002 for STBs, PVRs, DVD players—the usual lineup. The company pledges to support both hard disk and optical recorder platforms. Patrick Ang, EVP and COO at ESS, says that ESS has joined the ranks of companies able to offer both decoders and encoders and can offer customers the tools for the "next generation of consumer electronics applications." Press release

3Dlabs and Microsoft team to develop Windows CE .NET graphics reference development board

3Dlabs hasn't made a big deal about it, but the company has been well into the embedded graphics market for some time with their Permedia technology. The company is in quite a few military and aeronautic displays, for example.

Most recently, 3Dlabs has been working closely with Microsoft on the graphics side of the Windows CE .Net initiative. In the first piece of the deal, Microsoft is using 3Dlabs' graphics driver in Windows CE .NET announced at CES. And, on their side, 3Dlabs is seeking to build the market with a PCI graphics product for developers that will let them design products around 3Dlabs' graphics and Windows CE .NET. The 3Dlabs Windows CE .NET Graphics Reference Development Board (the WinceNet GRD?) is being offered as an Oxygen VX1 PCI board with 32 Mbytes of memory, and it's available immediately for $225 at the 3Dlabs electronic store, www.3dlabs.com.

3Dlabs says they are offering developers development systems based on Permedia silicon and a range of graphics IP cores. Together with Microsoft, they have a reference driver that is integrated into the Windows CE .NET DDK. Developers are directed to contact 3Dlabs at embedded.graphics@3dlabs for more information on developing with 3Dlabs silicon and IP. Press release

Palm unveils software for Mac OS X with improved synchronization—available as Beta version

In honor of Macworld this year, Palm offered Palm Desktop 4.0 for Mac OS X as a Beta download. The new software offers Native Mac OS X support, improved handheld-to-desktop data compatibility, vCard and vCal support and the ability to use multiple languages. One of the major advantages of the new software is improved capability across platforms, meaning that Mac people and PC people can more easily exchange information. The new software can be downloaded at www.palm.com/macintosh. Press release

ATI scores win with Hercules for new play in European market

ATI has been lining up new board partners throughout the world as part of their new strategy to horizontalize their business. One of the most dramatic new wins for the company is the recently announced deal with Hercules. ATI will be supplying chips for a new line of products, including high-end boards for the hardcore gamer based on the Radeon 8500 chip. A key product will be All-In-Wonder products using the Radeon 8500DV.

Obviously, this is a big deal for ATI. It's a vote of confidence from a major European retail player, but it's also interesting, since this also seems like a departure from ATI's plan to keep the retail biz for themselves and use their board partners for OEM and distributor sales. So far, ATI's chat site claims that the company has 20 partners, most of them in Asia.

Guillemot, at the same time, makes a point to say they will still be working with Kyro in the future as well. The deal with ATI gives Guillemot an alternative to Nvidia, which can be a demanding partner, and a broader product line with Radeon board and TV/PC boards.

Obviously, new strategy is in order. Guillemot reported their earnings this week as well, and the company's earnings of 52.8 Euros represents a 38.9% decrease in business. The company is blaming it on decreased PC sales and a slowdown in the game console business before the introduction of the GameCube and Xbox. Press release

Alchemy Semiconductor demonstrates Media Excel's MPEG-4 software codec running on AU1000

Austin-based Alchemy Semiconductor, Inc., is working with Media Excel software to incorporate MPEG-4 into the Alchemy package. Alchemy says their chip is powerful enough to run Media Excel's MPEG-4 software and provide full frame rate encoding. The story is that Media Excel's software is 800 times faster than other MPEG-4 software products, and it pairs well with Alchemy's 400 MHz, .5-watt Au1000 chip. Alchemy says developers don't need a dedicated co-processor for video. Rather, MPEG-4 can be run using only 40% of the Au1000's power. It's early days yet for these players, but they've got a good story. Press release

ATI ships Fire GL 8800 Workstation Graphics Boards continues long-standing deal for Fire GL with HP

ATI started off the year with a new product shipment. The Fire GL 8800, ATI's mid-range 3D workstation graphics board, is on its way to customers. And, the first customer who's getting the new boards is Hewlett-Packard. The HP Workstation crew headed by product marketing manager, Jeff Wood, have been happy with the Fire GL line. Wood says, "It fits well with our technical computing workstation strategy of providing the best available graphics at each price/performance point through our Leadership Graphics program." HP has been among ATI's most loyal customers for the Fire GL board.

The Fire GL 8800 is equipped with ATI technology, and, in fact, it is the first Fire GL product with ATI's Radeon line of graphics controller rather than the IBM technology of older Fire GL products. Thus, it supports DirectX8 and has ATI's Truform and Smartshader technologies. The board has 128 MB DDR memory, DVD playback, support for 2048 x 1536 and an integrated TMDS transmitter to support DVI to 1600 x 1200. Press release

Emblaze and Motorola to bring MEPG-4 to DragonBall MX1

In what could be a key deal for Emblaze, Motorola and Emblaze have agreed to port Emblaze's MPEG-4 to Motorola's MX1, a processor that's already powering all the world's Palms. Motorola has switched to an ARM core for the MX1 line of processors, and their success is not assured in spite of their big customer base. Motorola says they've shipped 30 million Dragonball processors; Emblaze will be happy with a portion of that, and they're getting a great endorsement in this deal with Motorola. Press release

Every win counts: ATI graphics powers TongFang PCs built in Mainland China

Count on it, ATI is going to announce every win they get and the Chinese market is a good and attractive market for ATI as it fights its way back to market share parity with Nvidia. TongFang has selected ATI's Rage 128 Pro for its ChaoYue 3500D, desktop computer based on the Pentium 4 1.5 Ghz with 128 Mbytes of memory, a 40 Gbyte hard drive, CD ROM and a 15-inch CRT.

ATI is also shipping the Mobility Radeon 7500 and the company says their new Mobility products will help solidify the company's solid lead in the notebook market. (Though, God knows, Nvidia has pulled out all the stops to win in the very attractive, notebook market. But, it will take time.) ATI's Radeon 7500 is the first mobile processor to ship with support for 128-bit DDR rather than 64-bit DDR. ATI also claims an edge in power/performance tradeoffs promising extended battery life for watching DVDs, playing 3D games or presentations.

ATI has an all important win for the Radeon 7500 with Dell in that company's Inspiron 8100 notebook PC.

Press releases: TongFang, Notebooks

Nvidia claims dominance on desktop with GeForce Titanium; VisionTek leads growth

In a press release that's long on enthusiasm and short on actual information, Nvidia claims that boards based on its newest line of chip, the GeForce Titanium have taken the market by storm. The company says they have more than 50 wins with OEMs and lists ABS, Alienware, Compaq, Dell, Evesham, Falcon Northwest, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Legend, MicronPC, Nutrend, Polywel, Sys, and Xi among their customers. VisionTek is the leader now in the retail channel and is launching programs to maintain this position.

Nvidia credits VisionTek's new Xtasy 6964 which is based on the GeForce 3 Ti 500 chip as a top prize winner in various magazine and website awards including PC Gamer Magazine, PC World, and SharkyExtreme.

Why do we tell you these things? Well, we think the emergence of VisionTek as a major retail player is important and we think that Nvidia makes more noise the more competitors irritate it. Press release

MediaQ raises $10.7 million in financing and finds key ally in National Semiconductor

MediaQ is a key contender in the evolving market for handheld graphics and the company has gotten a significant boost with an all-important $10.7 million investment from existing investors and new strategic partners. The lead investor in this deal is National Semiconductor Corporation, which has expressed more than a passing interest in the handheld market. The two companies will work together to develop complementary products.

MediaQ's other investors include Wseton Presidio Capital, El Dorado Ventures, Infineon Technologies, Summit Accelerator Fund and ViVentures.

MediaQ is fighting it out for current customers with Epson. Down the line both companies are looking at significant challengers including NeoMagic and Imagination Technologies. Press release

And the Radeons keep on coming: All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV hits the shelves in time for Christmas

The newest addition to ATI's line of All-in-Wonder boards, the Radeon 8500DV, is shipping to North American retail stores with a price tag of $399. Based on ATI's Radeon 8500 GPU, this board ups the ante in the TV/PC/Video Capture board market with IEEE 1394 DV. The board also features RF remote control and access to DVD and games in other rooms if USB is available.

As a future option, ATI promises component output to connect the All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV to digital TVs. As with earlier products in the A-i-W line, ATI offers PVR functions to North American users via a Gemstar interactive program guide that lets viewers record shows for later viewing, as well as time-shifting features.

Video editing is provided via Ulead VideoStudio 5. Bundled software also includes Half-Life Counter Strike, Team Fortress Classic and Uplink.

The point? ATI and Nvidia are both offering users TV features. VisionTek tells us their Xtasy Everything board is a hit for Christmas. No doubt ATI is looking forward to a boost as well. IEEE 1394 is a one-up. Press release

ATI gets wins with HP and Gateway

HP is offering the All-in-Wonder Radeon card with HP Pavilion home desktop PCs via the Configure-to-Order program. This is going to put the All-in-Wonder in front of more users and gives ATI a reach beyond the retail shelves.

Gateway has opted for the Radeon 8500 card with 64 MBytes DDR for the Gateway 700 series of Pentium 4 computers. The system comes with 512 Mbytes of PC800 RDRAM and 15-inch LCD flat panels.

Press releases: HP, Gateway

MPEG-2 LA strikes again, this time at Dell

Just because it's a standard doesn't mean there aren't patent holders lurking in the bushes, and nowhere is this more true than in the confusing jungle of MPEG-2. The MPEG-LA group, formed in 1996 as a limited liability company, has emerged as a major coalition of patent holders and includes Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Scientific-Atlanta, Sony Corp., U.S. Philips Corp. and Victor Co. of Japan. This group owns 44 patents in MPEG technology. Also part of the group are Columbia University and the City of New York, which also own rights to several MPEG-2 Patents. The group has already taken on Compaq in a much-publicized suit, and we see here that Compaq as well as Apple and Hewlett-Packard are license holders, so we can guess how the Compaq case came out, and HP and Apple are also playing ball with MPEG-LA.

The suit against Dell was filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware on Friday, December 7. Whether Dell sees this as a Pearl Harbor-style sneak attack is unknown. As of this writing, the company isn't making comments. Press release

Microtune and nCube develop silicon-based upconverter; new product can save broadcasters space, money, and power

Microtune is building itself a brand-new business. The company has partnered with nCube to build a chipset that shrinks all the RF (radio frequency) components of a convention upconverter into a three-chip module. Traditional implementations are about the size of a VCR.

Products built using the new VideoCaster will enable true video-on-demand. Ganging a bunch of these units together enables broadcasters to send thousands of simultaneous channels of real-time video and at the same time reduce the space requirements by 90% and the power demand by 40%. Microtune claims their VideoCaster is the smallest upconverter in the world.

This partnership between nCube and Microtune has been a fruitful one. NCube develops technology used by cable operators and telephony companies to deliver VOD, digital advertising insertion and network-based personal video recording (PVR). More important perhaps is nCube's ongoing relationship with broadcasters. The company's nCube n4 Streaming Media appliance is in use in more than 20 countries. Currently, nCube has built the largest video server in the world for Kingston Communications and it's building the largest video server in the United States for Time Warner Cable in Los Angeles for their VOD service. Press release

Tyan intros new mobo for Athlon MP

Tyan's new Tiger MPX system board puts AMD's new 760 MPX chipset to work to support two AMD Athlon MP processors. The ATX board is designed for heavy duty I/O. The Tiger MPX, a follow on to the Tiger MP (one of the first system boards introduced for the Athlon MPs), includes AGP, 32-bit PCI and 66MHz 64-bit PCI. It supports up to 3 Gbytes of high-speed DDR and offers an optional integrated 3Com 10/100BaseT Lan Port. Press release

AOL renews, re-configures investment deal with Gateway

Gateway and AOL have had an investment relationship since 1999. At that time the deal was that AOL would eventually invest $800 million in Gateway and in return Gateway would build products that tied into the AOL network. One of the first examples of that strategy was a failed Internet access device based on the Transmeta chipset called the Connected Touch Pad. The $599 device was designed for home users and provided an immediate link to AOL. It disappeared without a trace in the sand.

Undaunted, the relationship has continued and AOL has invested $400 million in Gateway so far. Now, AOL has announced plans to invest an additional $200 million in preferred shares. The deal is less of an cash investment in Gateway than originally planned (in all it will come to $600 million), but Gateway is also being relieved of Internet payments on debt sold to AOL. Instead, AOL is exchanging the $200 in convertible debt for shares of a new class of Gateway Series C convertible preferred stock. The two companies said Gateway didn't get as much cash as specified in the original deal because Gateway didn't need that much.

It's all in how you look at it we guess. $200 less in debt and $200 cash still adds up to $400 in our books. Press release

Intel releases stereoscopic code from its skunk works

Intel has a wealth of technology buried in its labs all over the world. Ideally the company is just waiting for the right time to unleash it on the world with the hope that the new technology will drive new demand for Intel's products, especially processors. Apparently, the time is right for Intel's OpenCV open-source software that interprets the images from cameras to enable computers to see in stereo.

The next logical question that must be asked is, Why do computers need to see in stereo? The application is designed to enable the development of applications capable of face recognition, gesture tracking and object tracking.

This code comes from Intel's Russian lab in Nizhny Novgorod, which was established in 1990. We've played with this stuff when Intel has invited us to open houses for their lab projects. We remember one application that used gesture recognition as an I/O tool. As an example you might throw away a document by making a sweeping gesture, etc. We also played a game by bobbing our heads, but all we really remember is the embarrassment and the growing suspicion that sometimes Intel makes us do things so the engineers can replay tapes and laugh at us later.

Back to the story. The software, 2.1 OpenCV, is available through Intel's Open Source Computer Vision Library (OpenCV) in Russia, and it includes an interface to Matlab, a development tool for vision-based applications. In the past year, says Intel, since OpenCV has been available to developers, there have been over 75,000 downloads of OpenCV, and there are 2,000 registered developers. Someday, says the company, we could have two cameras mounted on our cameras that watch us and react to our facial expressions and gestures. Press release

Roxio to acquire MGI at bargain rate in stock swap worth $38.8 million

The deal with Roxio is a stock-for-stock swap in which Roxio will acquire all of the outstanding shares of MGI Software Corp. Roxio will issue approximately 2.3 million shares of Roxio stock to stockholders of MGI at the close of the transaction, yielding an approximate exchange ratio of 0.052 shares of Roxio for each share of MGI. The $38.8 deal is expected to close in 90 days, say the principals.

MGI has had a rough go of it with the market turndown and, in a way, Roxio is riding the the rescue. The deal includes a $1.5 million line of credit to enable MGI to continue operations. Press release

ARM news:New Developer Suite Software includes Jazelle support; TSMC signs on for ARM946E and ARM1022E cores.

The cause of Java on handhelds has just gotten a little stronger with the newest release of the ARM Developer Suite software, version 1.2, which will include tools to support ARM's Jazelle Technology, ARMs cores that enable Java hardware acceleration. The supported cores include the ARM7EJ-S and the ARM926EJ-S cores. In addition, ARM's new software development tools include host support for Red Hat Linux and ARM VFP9-S and ARM VFP10 vector floating point co-processors.

Note that the availability of Java acceleration and floating-point capabilities in new ARM products will enable advanced features for ARM's customers, many of whom build phones and handhelds Internet access devices. It makes for an interesting future.

In addition, ARM announced that TSMC has licensed the ARM946E and the ARM1022E cores for manufacture through the ARM Foundry program. TSMC plans to being silicon fabrication in early 2002 and will support the ARM946E core on its 0.13-micron and 0.13-micron core logic processors. The ARM1022E core will be supported on TSMC's 0.13-micron low-voltage process. Both cores have been developed to offer performance with power efficiency. The ARM1022E core consumes 1.6mW/MHz including caches and the ARM946E core uses less than 0.4mW/MHz in TSMC's 0.13-micron process. See associated press releases: Arm's new developer suite, TSMC licences arm cores.

Nvidia announces broad nForce compatibility and support from memory suppliers

Remember nForce, Nvidia's integrated product offering introduced at Computex? The part has taken its time getting to market, and it's competing directly with VIA's KT266a and SiS's 735, both of which are turning in very good performance and challenging prices. Nvidia's chipset is unique in its use of hyper transport for communications between the chipset's major parts, the IGP (integrated graphics processor) and the Media & Communications Processor (MCP). With nForce, Nvidia introduced its TwinBank Memory Architecture, which offers two memory 64-bit SDR/DDR SDRAM memory controllers. Nvidia is planning for the future because two memory controllers aren't necessary for the current Athlons; their FSBs support one 64-bit DDR 266 SDRAM channel. The rest of wasted.

Most recently, Nvidia announced validation and compatibility testing of a broad array of DDR memory modules for nForce, including modules from Micron Technology, Samsung Semiconductor, Hynix Semiconductor, Infineon Technologies, Kingston Technology, Smart Modular Technologies, Crucial Technology and PNY Technologies.

The nForce has yet to prove itself in the market, even with low-cost reference boards from Nvidia, but this is the company's first run at the IGC (integrated graphics chipset) market and they've put a big, impossible-to-ignore stake in the ground. This is a company that learns by doing. Press release

Spatializer introduces VSP 11

Spatializer is a quiet little company that's been making a lot of noise in a lot of places. The company's Spatializer audio enhancement technology can improve sound on all platforms without hardware. The company has deals with media players, DVD chip companies and software media companies. Spatializer counts Panasonic, Toshiba, Samsung and Apple among its customers. The company's product VSP-11 captures sound from at the API level be it Wave or DirectSound and does its magic before sending the signal to the PC's sound card. It also processes the signal coming from speakers or other devices connected via USB. Spatializer says their technology enhances all Windows software media players including Microsoft Media Player, Real Player, Real Jukebox, WinAmp, WinDVD, PowerDVD, etc.

Spatializer VSP-11 includes four of Spatializer's products: 3D Stereo, which makes small speakers sound big and turns two speakers into 3D sound systems; Natural Headphone, which is 3D sound for headphones and, adds Spatializer slyly, offers a "realistic mobile theater experience while avoiding the cost of multi-channel royalties"; HRTF (head-related transfer functions) and room reverberation modeling techniques; and Vi.B.E. bass enhancement, PCE high-frequency enhancement for clearer, crisper and more brilliant audio, especially over the Internet.

The company has also added a fancy full-color customizable GUI. Taken together, Spatializer's features can improve the sound coming from inexpensive speakers (and, we suppose, look better given the GUI). Better yet, says the company, they're offering a complete package of four sound enhancement products for one price. Here the company is having a little fun with Dolby, as they are wont to do. Dolby, as you know, sells Dolby Headphone as a separate product.

The company introduced VSP-11 at Comdex. Press release


Jon Peddie Research 4 St. Gabrielle Ct. Tiburon, California 94920 (415) 435-9368 (415) 435-8214 Fax	Jon Peddie: jon@jonpeddie.com Kathleen Maher: kathleen@jonpeddie.com Errors and Omissions: We do our best to keep our website current and accurate, but typographical errors occasionally occur. We reserve the right to correct or cancel any orders based on incorrect or erroneous information.
This document maintained by webmaster@jonpeddie.com Copyright ©2008
Back to top

NEWS WATCH ARCHIVES

July 2003

May 2003

September 2002

December 2001

AMD starts campaign to gussy up its image — just in time

Evans and Sutherland rolls out high performance PC-IG with COTS chips

Intel changes the rules: introduces new communications chip technology

ESS shocks investors with lowered outlook for coming quarter

Pinnacle showcases Vortex at IBC

ATI issues earnings warning; pledges allegiance to PCI Express

Intel announces several initiatives at IDF for connectivity and security

As expected, Intel cuts prices on chips -- cuts are deeper than expected.

ATI introduces the Mobility Radeon 9000

Z/I Imaging choses 3Dlabs Wildcat III 6210 for ImageStation 2002 workstations

Can the newest Nomad give the iPod a run for its money?

Cirrus adds on to its line of audio player chips and an audio Christmas looms closer

Chicago's Adler Auditorium upgrades to E&S DigiStar 3

Zoran gets win with Pioneer for DVDR/RW recorder

Gettin' in on the act: ATI announces optimized drivers for Itanium 2

Cirrus gets digital audio win with iRiver in SlimX portable audio player

Yippee ti yo ti yea, Gator told to cut out the pop up adds

Samsung stands by ARM

Sonicblue introduces Rio 900 digital audio player

SGI and the OpenGL ARB announce OpenGL 1.4 -- a step on the path to OpenGL 2.0

AMD issues a second warning and riles an already jittery market

Intel chooses Cirrus' MPEG A/V codec for Intel's Media Center Reference Design

Toshiba opts for Spatializer in its Edge RD-X2 DVD recorder

ATI and PalmSource announce licensing deal

RealNetworks sinks in the Nielsen ratings

And here's the good news: UMC sees sales rise in '02 quarter over quarter

Microsoft shows how it's done -- embraces OS X

Rivals join hands in DSP race for cell phones and DVD players

ATI's Imageon co-processor for handhelds gets win with Toshiba PocketPC e740

ATI gets big play with ID and Activision

Zoran signs on with NEC, takes advantage of encoder technology

AMD issues a second warning and riles an already jittery market

Intel chooses Cirrus' MPEG A/V codec for Intel's Media Center Reference Design

Toshiba opts for Spatializer in its Edge RD-X2 DVD recorder

ATI and PalmSource announce licensing deal

RealNetworks sinks in the Nielsen ratings

And here's the good news: UMC sees sales rise in '02 quarter over quarter

Microsoft shows how it's done -- embraces OS X

Rivals join hands in DSP race for cell phones and DVD players

ATI's Imageon co-processor for handhelds gets win with Toshiba PocketPC e740

ATI gets big play with ID and Activision

Zoran signs on with NEC, takes advantage of encoder technology

The Diva sings for Gemstar

AMD gets new endorsements for Opteron

Cirrus Logic advances in the DVD market

Nvidia introduces add-in card approach for digital displays

What, a new Solaris? Already?

Evans & Sutherland and Lockheed come to an aggreement: it's toe-mA-toe

ESS gets DVD encoder enabling it to offer products for PVR, recordable DVD and home gateways

Apple introduces new servers for media clients

ATI gets win for All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500 in HP Pavilion "Football Special" PCs

Microsoft cuts Xbox prices in U.S. and Japan; follows on drop in prices in Europe

Intergraph's latest victory over Intel sends us to the dictionary to look up Pyrrhic

ATI introduces remote control

ATI gets win with Acer

ATI gets win with HP Pavilion for home desktops

Nvidia gets win with HP Pavilion Desktop PCs

Apple updates DVD Studio Pro 1.5 for Mac OS X

AMD introduces its first Alchemy Au1100 Processor

Rick Belluzzo leaves Microsoft plans to start his own company

Jazzy Jazelle furthers the cause of ARM into next generation mobile devices

Intel ships 2.4 GHz Pentium 4

What is an iPod, really?

Nvidia answers ATI with Select Builder program for US channel partners

Cirrus gets win in Darwin Digital Jukebox

Corel launches Designer 9 at Cebit

ESS adds a little high-end glitz with strategic relationship including Linn Products and Sony to add SACD

Zoran shells out $5 million for stake in Hong Kong box builder with Chinese connections

SGI offers to help out in the HP and Compaq merger with an alternative for customers

Kaon introduces .NET viewer

Apple having trouble shipping G4 flatpanel iMac. Steve Jobs, on the other hand says all is swell

PanelLink Sii 164 transmitter included on VisionTek's new Xtasy Geforce 4 products

ATI signs up two new board customers from Hong Kong

Creative acquires 3DLabs

3DLabs in Dell Precision Workstations 530