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Tid-bits
12/16 - Seagate's Barracuda 7200.9 family of hard drives incorporates not only native command queueing (NCQ), but third generation NCQ at that. It's quiet, too. Disks store up "to 160GB per platter".
Linksys routers now ship with Norton Internet Security 2006. "Customers will receive a 60-day complimentary subscription". What, is a stateful packet inspection (SPI) firewall not enough?
Microsoft is getting better. Six additional MS products have been awarded CC (Common Criteria) certification, two from the Windows XP family, the rest from the Windows Server 2003 family. These products join Exchange Server 2003, Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004, and two Windows 2000 products, which have already passed certification. "CC certification is an international standard for ensuring that IT products conform to stringent security requirements".
Intel's President and CEO is to deliver a keynote, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) no less, in January. The primary topic shall be digital content delivered on-demand over the Internet. There's a revolution going on. Intel's V//V is set for launch in the first quarter. Intel's next generation dual-core mobile platform Napa is also on the agenda at the CES. "The way people view entertainment and share information is transforming".
NVIDIA is expanding their chipset technology even more. The company is already the largest supplier of AMD core logic. Now the company shall aquire ULi Electronics, another core logic company. Revenue from NVIDIA's chipset division, or media and communications processor (MCP), has already "increased 100 percent year-over-year and has achieved record revenue for five consecutive quarters".
Skype has stocking-stuffers "available in retail stores and online in time for the holidays".
Shopping.com experienced traffic increases of about 30% on Black Friday (November 25) and Cyber Monday (November 28). The online retail comparison aggregator has so many items that it is having difficulty organizing it all. Too much is a good problem to have, though. The "the breadth and depth of choice online has been a blessing and a curse with no clear way to sort through all the products".
The good sense in IBM promoting Linux is that IBM can then promote its own hardware, middleware, and services. "Linux server subscriptions will be available on IBM server hardware, or with IBM middleware, and IBM Services' SupportLine offerings".
Microsoft has released the first beta of Microsoft Exchange 12. The new server shall run on 64-bit hardware to help it scale well. The new Exchange Server shall work with Outlook Web Access, which will enable corporate employees to access their email anywhere in a browser, not just from company premises. The server also features unified messaging of fax, voice, and email, cell phones included. Not only will voice messages appear in inboxes, but cell phones shall be able to retrieve email via voice. "Microsoft is on track to make the final release generally available in late 2006 or early 2007".
Norton has been awarded a patent on an antivirus technology in its products. Histogram-based detection "accelerates the detection of complex threats".