Mark Hachman

PALO ALTO, Calif.—A clever implementation of simultaneous multithreading will allow IBM Corp.s Power5 processor to increase performance by 40 percent compared with the Power4, while only increasing the per-core die size by about 24 percent. Simultaneous multithreading, which Intel Corp. has marketed as “hyperthreading”, allows the processor to operate on whichever instruction stream, or “thread,” […]

PALO ALTO, CALIF.–The chip powering Disneys forthcoming MovieBeam set-top box will be supplied by Dotcast, executives said, and the company is already working on a chip to datacast movies and other data over DTV. MovieBeam, first disclosed this past spring at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in Las Vegas, will “datacast” movies over […]

PALO ALTO, Calif.—Executives of Sun Microsystems Inc. on Monday divulged more details of “Gemini,” the processor that will power Suns blade servers and low-end workstations beginning in 2004. Gemini combines two older UltraSparc II cores onto a single die with the JBus unit, used in conjunction with Suns latest UltraSparc III processors. Sun said the […]

Apple Computer Inc. said Monday it had begun shipping its new 64-bit Power Macintosh G5s to customers. “Were talking about full-fledged shipments,” said Greg Jozwiak, Apples vice president of hardware product marketing, in an interview Monday morning. Although Apple could have been dealt a blow when foundry partner IBM acknowledged Friday that its fab in […]

Power outages struck IBMs computer chip fabrication plant in East Fishkill, N.Y., affecting production as key products for Nvidia and Apple ramp up. The largest U.S. blackout ever struck New York on Thursday, leaving part of six U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario without power, an area where an estimated 50 million people […]

Analyst firm Gartner Inc. raised its estimates for third-quarter PC sales on Thursday, citing improved IT spending. Still, the firm said, its too early to conclude that the industry is experiencing a recovery. Gartners revised estimates call for the PC industry to sell 39.8 million units during the third quarter of 2003, a 9.6 increase […]

The SCO Group Inc. on Thursday reported a boost in profits and revenue for its fiscal third quarter, including $7.3 million of revenue from its controversial Unix-licensing efforts. In fact, the companys SCOsource licensing efforts boosted the company to a profit. SCO reported net income of $3.1 million on revenue of $20.1 million, versus a […]

In the latest move of its copyright offensive over Unix, the SCO Group Inc. on Wednesday gave final notice to IBM Corp. that SCO had terminated the Unix System V contract for IBMs Sequent software. Although SCO said it had notified IBM in writing almost two months ago that it would terminate its contract, it […]

Like PC competitors Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., Gateway Inc. is busy planning the next major phase in its diversification strategy: more than a dozen new consumer lines, including its own digital cameras. Gateway currently plans to deliver three still-image cameras, with resolutions up to 5.25 megapixels, according to sources. Gateway spokesman Brad Williams confirmed […]

HyperTransport, technology aimed at faster I/O, is picking up speed in the industry. Seven companies, including EMC, IBM, LTX, Media Fusion, National Semiconductor, Network Appliance and Texas Instruments, this week joined the HyperTransport Consortium, set up to admininister the development of the technology. This fall, HyperTransport will add special hooks for packet-based communication. “Weve pretty […]