AMD Downplays Performance Factor During Tech Analyst Day
At the start of AMD's semi-annual technology analyst day conference, president Dirk Meyer and VP of marketing Henri Richard set the tone for the day-long session by toning down even further the relative importance of performance, including among consumers.
"No longer do we hear that it's all about performance," said Meyer during his opening remarks. Instead, the three pillars of the company, as he perceives them, are power efficiency, providing the optimum visual experience to customers, and thirdly, something of a surprise: affordable Internet access, including to emerging markets. This may come as a shock to customers and investors alike who never considered AMD an ISP.
Visual Studio 2008, .NET 3.5 Reach Beta 2; Silverlight 1.0 Hits RC
No fewer than five major announcements in the development field are being issued by Microsoft this afternoon, the timing of which is by no means coincidental: On the top of the list, Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2008 -- which is quickly losing touch with its old code-name "Orcas" -- will be made generally available for download by this Friday, along with Beta 2 of .NET Framework 3.5.
But what developers have been itching to finally try is building applications for Silverlight - the company's new cross-platform graphical front-end module - under the auspices of Visual Studio.
Intel Speed Breakthrough Points to a Post-Motherboard Era
Up to now, when photonics have been used in silicon-based alternatives to electrical semiconductors, loose electrons altering the refractive index of the silicon have prevented high speeds. Now Intel engineers claim they've found a way around the problem, perhaps eliminating a principal obstacle to the development of optical interconnects at hundreds of gigabits per second and beyond.
The typical reason engineers like to design devices with as many components as possible on a single board seems obvious: Separate the components into separate parts, and you'd need to engineer some way for the parts to communicate with one another. Technically speaking, intra-system networking has been a feasibility for several years, but the latencies it would introduce are certainly measurable.
EFF Sues Universal Music Over Yanked Baby Dancing Video
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is defending a Pennsylvania mother whose YouTube video of her daughter dancing in her kitchen to a Prince song during the last Super Bowl halftime show, was yanked in response to a fair use complaint. Ms. Stephanie Lenz is suing Universal Music Group, with EFF's assistance, demanding reparations.
The basis of Lenz' suit, filed yesterday in US District Court for Northern California, is that her 29-second portrayal of her daughter dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" constituted "a self-evident non-infringing fair use under 17 U.S.C. [section] 107."
US Standards Board Still Indeterminate on OOXML
Earlier this week, the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS - despite its name, a US technical advisory group for ANSI) confirmed what BetaNews reported a week ago: A two-thirds majority has yet to be reached among the committee's V1 technical review board, with regard to whether Microsoft's Office Open XML suite of formats should be recommended for approval to its Executive Board.
That approval would be a next critical step towards OOXML being officially recommended by the US delegation to the International Standards Organization, which is currently considering OOXML for worldwide adoption. For the Executive Board to recommend it, the V1 committee must approve it first. Though unofficial reports say more voting members currently approve than disapprove, INCITS requires a two-thirds majority vote of V1 members.
Mozilla Admits Firefox Exploit Caused by Firefox Bug, Not IE
On July 10, engineers at Secunia issued a security advisory, rated "Highly Critical," warning Firefox users that their browser could be tricked into executing arbitrary JavaScript code. Soon afterward, Mozilla developers issued a statement saying the problem was caused by Internet Explorer, which could trick Firefox into executing that code. This morning, Mozilla security chief Window Snyder had to issue a retraction, stating Firefox could just as easily trick Firefox into doing the same thing.
The problem was first discovered by security engineer Thor Larholm, who gained recognition last month for having discovered a security hole in Apple's Safari for Windows pre-release two hours after having first obtained it. This time, Larholm reported his discovery as an "Internet Explorer 0day Exploit," by virtue of the fact that IE was the attack vector he originally discovered.
The YouTube Debates: Whose Platform Is It Anyway?
After a plethora of user-submitted videos that served as fuel for the banter among the eight Democratic presidential candidates at yesterday's CNN/YouTube political debate at the Citadel in South Carolina, the unasked question today remains this: Is it really a debate?
Granted, the task of situating eight candidates together for a two-hour political spectacle is in itself a logistical nightmare. In the interest of fairness, time has to be precisely allocated. Thus, producers measure the intervals they allot for candidates' responses in seconds rather than minutes. That fact alone prompts candidates to practice appropriate, attention-grabbing responses to questions well ahead of time. Spontaneity typically languishes after having been encapsulated within sound bites.
Acer: PC Industry Disappointed with Vista
In an interview with Financial Times Deutschland, the president of global #3 PC manufacturer Acer once again conveyed his overall disappointment with the lack of contribution he believes Microsoft's Windows Vista provides to PC sales. Though Gianfranco Lanci's comments were only briefly excerpted, for the first time, Lanci purported to speak not just for Acer but for his competitors as well, telling the paper, "Die gesamte Industrie ist enttäuscht über Windows Vista." ("The entire industry is disappointed with Windows Vista.")
Most likely, Lanci's comments were in Italian and translated into German. But a summary of his explanation by FTD points to two factors, the second being what he characterized as Vista's relative instability and lack of maturity. Lanci and other manufacturers had apparently hoped for a surge in sales comparable to what Windows XP and its predecessors provided.
Possible iPhone Security Hole to be Demonstrated in Las Vegas
Three researchers using a handful of tools mostly developed by others over the few weeks since the product's introduction, claim they have successfully cracked the Apple iPhone. In a white paper released today, the group claims it can obtain clandestine, wireless access to any and all files, including personally identifiable information, stored on an iPhone, and it plans to demonstrate how this is done at the BlackHat security conference in Las Vegas next week.
In their white paper, Charlie Miller and two colleagues with the group Independent Security Evaluators give credit to Apple for paying some attention to security architecture, and for reducing the phone's attack surface by refusing to open its operating system to third-party applications.
Microsoft to Release IronRuby to Open Source Group
Although the official announcement will be made Thursday by John Lam at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon, a Microsoft spokesperson did confirm to BetaNews this afternoon that IronRuby - its .NET-centric version of the open source scripting language Ruby - is now publicly available.
As Microsoft development general manager Scott Guthrie and lead IronRuby developer John Lam both stated on their respective blogs today, IronRuby and its associated libraries will be offered to the collective development organization RubyForge.com, for posting and public contributions next month.
Microsoft Joins Ask.com, Google in Implementing Privacy Provisions
Some weeks after the European Commission announced it would begin investigating the data retention policies of search engine providers other than Google, following its decision last month to anonymize its data retention logs after 18 months, Microsoft announced that it will adopt a similar policy.
In a statement issued this morning, however, Microsoft said it would give users of Windows Live the option of enabling the company to retain personal data for a longer period.
Background: Google's Interest in the 700 MHz Wireless Spectrum
Google's apparent promise to place a very high bid for a portion of the current UHF TV spectrum, if the US Federal Communications Commission follows through with a plan catalyzed by former Netscape chairman Jim Barksdale, has completely changed the game for wireless incumbents who weren't expecting stiff competition from a search engine company.
Google's apparent promise to bid as high as $4.6 billion for 60 MHz of the spectrum to be ceded by analog television in February 2009, has sparked a new round of speculation, perhaps fueled simply by the company's size. But a review of the history of this little summer sleeper of a story reveals that even if it does intend to divide and conquer, Google's strategy isn't that much of a secret.
Google's Gains Not Great Enough for Wall Street
More and more, Google these days behaves like a standard corporation. Its growth model is less organic, and more driven by mergers and acquisitions - especially its recent effort to acquire online display advertising provider DoubleClick. And rather than growing by disproportionate amounts, Google's growth rate is falling more in line with reality...which is disappointing investors who had preferred the virtual fantasies of instant capital that it had once been known for.
Which is why a company with 57.6% greater quarterly revenue than for the prior year's second quarter, and 28.2% greater profit on that revenue - after accounting for the costs of acquisitions - managed to disappoint Wall Street today, closing down 5.2% on the NASDAQ exchange to $520.12 per share.
Is AMD Returning to Profitability?
&otThe old saying, essentially, is, "From here, things can only get better." From where AMD was last April, that's indeed what happened - and perhaps that's no surprise. Yesterday, the company reported rising chip shipments that led to increased revenues and recovering profit margins, though still not yet near the point of being considered "healthy."
Patent Reform Fast-tracked Through Senate Committee
Just two days after the House version of a sweeping patent reform bill passed the US House of Representatives by a voice vote - meaning the supporters were obviously louder than the opponents - the bill as reported to the Senate swept through the Judiciary Committee, most likely with very few amendments.
One of the bill's chief provisions changes US Code to increase the burden on those raising challenges to previously issued patents who wish to argue willful infringement.
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