Mark Hachman

The end is near, finally. If all goes as planned, the 802.11g wireless standard will be officially completed on June 12. The final draft of the technical specification was completed last Friday. With the completion of version 8.2 of the draft technical specification, all thats left to do is a “signatory” phase, where the members […]

Pioneer Corp. took a step away from its exclusive support of the DVD-RW standard by announcing a new recordable DVD drive for PCs, the A-06, which will support the DVD+RW and DVD+R standards. A Japanese version, the DVR-AO6-J, will ship in June to the Japanese market. A similar model for the Americas will ship at […]

Dell Computer has replaced its Latitude C400 notebook with a new model designed to accommodate the upcoming Dothan mobile processor from Intel. The Latitude D400 incorporates the standard features of the Latitude D-series, including the D/Bay expansion bay and compatibility with the D/View notebook stand. The D400 also includes a smart card reader, a standard […]

GameBoy Advance owners with the longing to get connected now have a new option: a Bluetooth module that will allow them to be connected to the Internet. The X-tra Fun Bluetooth module for the GameBoy Advance SP will go on sale around Christmas 2003 for $49, according to Mark Cramer, the companys president and chief […]

Intuit said Wednesday that it has dropped product activation and digital-rights-management software from almost all future products, including paid copies of TurboTax, in response to a backlash from its customers. Adding digital-rights-management software to the companys tax preparation neither paid off financially in attracting new customers, nor in consumer satisfaction, Intuit spokesman Scott Gulbransen said. […]

This month Hitachi Global Storage Technologies will begin shipping the first 7,200-RPM disk drive for notebooks, adding enhanced storage capabilities to the small market of mobile workstations. The new 60-GByte Travelstar 7K60 drives will use a new “femto” slider, upon which the read/write head is mounted. Shrinking the slider reduced its size and weight compared […]

Seagate Technology has announced its intention to shift disk drives designed for servers to a 2.5-inch form factor, claiming that OEMs will be able to consolidate their data centers. The drive maker did not give a firm timetable for the shift, and executives said that the transition will likely take place over a period of […]

Microsoft Corp. said it will act as a neutral arbiter in the ongoing battle between the competing recordable DVD standards, supporting all of them in the upcoming Longhorn release. Microsoft added support for DVD-R and DVD-RW into Longhorn, due in 2005. Longhorn already supports the DVD-RAM, DVD+RW and DVD+R formats. “We are committed to making […]

NEW ORLEANS–Microsoft employees showed off a practical application of digital-rights-management software Tuesday, in what was billed as the first public showcase of the companys Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB). Microsoft executives formally unveiled the Nexus, the heart of the companys software. Mike Nash, corporate vice-president of the Security Business Unit at Microsoft, and some Microsoft […]

Transmeta Corp. will announce Tuesday that Microsoft Corp. has qualified the Crusoe TM5800 processor for use in the “Mira” smart displays, which began shipping in February. Microsoft qualified the TM5800 at speeds of 800MHz up to 1GHz for use in the smart displays, according to Mike DeNeffe, director of marketing at Transmeta. The qualification will […]