March 17 News

Technical, Business and Product News from the Modern Computer World... Updated Once Per Month

Toms Hardware - XBOX '2' Uses AMD Processor
Microsoft engineers are busy designing the second version of Xbox around an AMD CPU, according to Fechtor Detwiler, the Boston-based investment bank.

Their channel checkers picked up this tidbit, and say that Intel won't be able to snatch and grab the contract as easily as it did first time around.

"One of the primary reasons for the selection we understand," the firm says in a research note, "was the close relationship of Microsoft with Nvidia..."

Toms Hardware - Canada Considers Massive New Blank CD Taxes
The Canadian government is mulling copyright levy proposals which will see a royalty charge of CAN$1.23 imposed on each blank CDR, and CAN$100 added to each MP3 player sold in the country. Lobbying for the changes is the Canadian Private Copying Collective, a representative of music companies and publishers. It is pressing for new royalty lines, bringing blank CDRs and MP3 players into line with other recording media, such as audio cassettes which already carry a levy to compensate for their use in copying music. Full story at The Register USA

ZDNET - Judge: MS Claim to 'Windows' in Doubt
By Lisa M. Bowman
...In December, Microsoft sued operating-system maker Lindows.com, claiming the 6-month-old company was illegally taking advantage of its Windows trademark and potentially confusing customers. However, in a preliminary ruling issued late Friday, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said the suit raised "serious questions" about whether the word "Windows" is entitled to trademark protection.

"Although Lindows.com certainly made a conscious decision to play with fire by choosing a product and company name that differs by only one letter from the world's leading computer software program," Coughenour wrote, "one could just as easily conclude that in 1983 Microsoft made an equally risky decision to name its product after a term commonly used in the trade to indicate the windowing capability of a GUI (graphical user interface)."

The judge also refused Microsoft's request to immediately shut down the Lindows site and stop the smaller company from using the word "Lindows." Instead, those issues may be decided at trial.

ZDNET - Major SuSE Linux Update
By Matthew Broersma
SuSE's software touts itself as the first to use the KDE 3.0 graphical user interface, which adds graphical enhancements similar to those found in Windows XP (news - web sites) or Apple's Mac OS X (news - web sites). ...It will arrive in shops and be available for download by mid-April, SuSE said.

..The environment uses a new API (application programming interface) and adds a host of new multimedia features; for example, the file manager plays a selection from a sound or video file when the mouse rolls over the file name, and displays a preview of file contents. Apple and Microsoft promoted similar features with the newest versions of their operating systems.

...SuSE Linux 8 includes tweaked versions of its e-mail client, organizer and media players. Other multimedia features include support for CD writing, video playback and editing, the Kooka scanning application, and version 0.9 of the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture.

...The underlying technology has also been refreshed, using version 2.4.18 of the Linux kernel, glibc 2.2.5, and XFree86 4.2 for graphics card support. The operating system will include the Apache 1.3.23 Web server and Samba 2.2.3a for connecting to Windows file and printer networks.

SuSE Linux Personal will retail for £39 ($55) including VAT, while the Professional edition, which includes additional applications and technical support, will cost £59 ($83) including VAT. ...Under the open-source development model, SuSE will also make the software available for free download, but the download will not include manuals or support.

TechWeb - Shrinking Paychecks In Silicon Valley
Diane Rezendes Khirallah
...Microsoft will cut the salaries for some 1,600 of its employees in Silicon Valley. The reduction isn't in base pay, but in the "geographic differential" paid to employees who work in high-cost areas. That differential will be reduced from 25% to 15% of base salaries beginning Aug. 1. Although the practice (news - Y! TV) of paying a geographic differential is nothing new for many large firms, it's relatively new to Microsoft. A spokesman says the company "regularly evaluates the corporate structure to be sure it's still competitive." Based on that, Microsoft decided in February 2000 that in order to be competitive it needed to boost the paychecks of its Silicon Valley workers.

That initial 15% increase rose to 25% in November 2000, at the height of the IT talent shortage when companies tried to outbid each other in salary and perks to win the workers they needed to fuel the E-business boom. In addition to retention, the idea was that the differential would make it easier for people to buy a home in the area...