Ipod linux

News Digest 9.30.02: Linux iPod, Itanium Woes

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Sanyo's HD-Burn Doubles Conventional CD-R Capacity

Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. has introduced a CD drive which can read and write twice the normal amount of data onto a conventional CD-R disc, the company announced Wednesday. When data is recorded with the CRD-BPDV2 drive for HD-Burn, a 700MB CD-R can hold 1.4G bytes of data. Sanyo's HD-Burn technology increases the data storage density by increasing the number of useful pits into which data is burned. First, the individual pits are made smaller. Second, an improved error correction system enables a greater proportion of the pits to be used for data and less for error-correction.

Read the full story on: IDG

Mysticom Sets Watermark for 10-Gbit Ethernet Over Copper

Mysticom Inc. demonstrated a transceiver that set a new watermark for high-end Ethernet signaling over copper wires at the Communications Design Conference this week, sending 10-Gbit/second signals over 25 meter copper using Infiniband cables, and over 10 meters using Category 5 unshielded twisted pair. Pushing full 10-Gbit/s Ethernet over 100 meters of standard Category 5 copper cables is currently a Holy Grail in Ethernet design, and a goal that some  including Mysticom's engineers  say cannot be commercially reached with the current standard. Currently, attenuation and crosstalk of high-frequency signals on the unshielded Category 5 cables prevent the fast links and require a move to more expensive optical fiber or the new thickly shielded Infiniband copper cables.

Read the full story on: EE Times

Proxim Releases Wi-Fi Devices With 12 Mile Range

Communications equipment maker Proxim became the latest company to sell high-powered Wi-Fi networks that travel long distances. These versions of wireless networks using the Wi-Fi, or 802.11b, standard create a wireless zone of up to 12 miles long, far beyond the usual 300-foot-radius range that Wi-Fi typically achieves. The Proxim product can achieve long distances because the company boosted the power inside its access points. It also added additional antennas to the access points so signals could be beamed directly to a home, rather than creating a cloud of access. Proxim's product, priced from about $2,000 to $6,000, will include all the equipment necessary to become a small-scale network provider. Each kit can serve about 250 customers.

Read the full story on: CNET News.com

Intel's Huge Bet Turns Iffy

Itanium, a joint project of Intel and Hewlett-Packard, Silicon Valley's two largest companies, has been in the laboratory for more than a decade. With more than 200 million transistors on each chip, it is designed to process data in 64-bit chunks. It has taken an estimated $5 billion and teams of hundreds of engineers from the two companies to bring the first Itanium chip to market. As the struggles and costs mount for the companies, skeptical technologists say Itanium now has the hallmarks of a bloated project in deep trouble. It is already four years behind schedule, emerging just as companies are in no mood to spend money on technology.

Read the full story on: New York Times

AMD's 64-bit Gamble

If AMD succeeds with the new chips, developed not coincidentally under the code name "Hammer," AMD could become the microprocessor industry's powerhouse, setting the pace for computing for years to come. Hammer chips process data in 64-bit chunks, while retaining compatibility with the 32-bit x86 instruction set. But if AMD stumbles, Hammer will join a growing list of powerful chips nobody wants. So far, AMD has failed to make much headway in the server market and has been struggling more than usual lately getting into personal computers because of stiff competition and weak demand.

Read the full story on: MSNBC

Hole in Open Source File Viewers Lets Hackers In

A security flaw in commonly distributed file-viewing programs may make it possible for attackers to use Adobe PDF and PostScript files to run malicious code on machines using the Unix or Linux operating systems, according to an advisory released by technology security company iDefense. The open source viewing programs, named gv, kghostview and ggv, are used to view PDF and PostScript files and are commonly packaged with popular versions of Linux,  including those by Red Hat and the Debian Project, as well as common flavors of Unix such as those by Sun Microsystems, according to David Endler, director of technical intelligence at iDefense.  Using a flaw in the file-viewers' program code, an attacker could use a deliberately malformed PostScript or PDF file to cause a buffer overflow in the viewer that would enable code from the attacker to be run.

Read the full story on: IDG News Service

IBM Launches Smart-Chip Consultancy

IBM has set up a program designed to help corporate clients take advantage of "smart chips," tiny wireless chips that can perform a variety of functions, including the duties of a checkout clerk or a security guard. As part of the Smart Machines program, announced Friday by Big Blue's Global Services Division, businesses can turn to IBM to help build a smart-card payment system, for example. Although IBM has long worked with smart cards and sold radio frequency identification tags for applications such as inventory tracking, these new technologies have only recently come down in price and received the endorsement of companies such as Visa International. Visa announced earlier this month that it plans to use smart cards fitted with special tags to allow its customers to conduct transactions such as buying a soda without having to use cash or credit cards.

Read the full story on: CNET News.com

High-Definition Display Uses White OLED, Color Filters

Eastman Kodak Co. and Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. have developed an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display that employs a white organic electroluminescent material and color filters that may be applied to large, high-definition displays. Sanyo will demonstrate a 14.7-inch prototype of the display at the CEATEC Japan 2002 conference which begins Tuesday in Makuhari, Japan. "The combination of a white electroluminescent material and a color filter does not require precise alignment as rigorous as pixelized OLED displays," said Kenichi Shibata, manager of Sanyo's display devices department. "The efficiency is a bit sacrificed by the filter, but this white electroluminescent and color filter-type display is suitable for large-sized, high-definition displays."

Read the full story on: EE Times

Dell Computers are Officially American

After a long and tortuous process of deliberation, US Customs has decided that Dell's notebook computers are American. Even though in one of the computers under examination, the chassis is from Taiwan, the hard disk from Thailand, the floppy disk drive and power supply are from China, the CD-ROM is from Japan, and the memory from either Korea, Japan or Singapore. The BIOS and CPU are sourced in the US.

Read the full story on: The Register

Sourceforge Project Links Apple iPod with Linux

The Sourceforge Project released iPod on Linux Friday, a tool that converts the Apple HFS+ iPod to a new fat32 iPod automatically.