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May 14, 2003
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Nvidia Detonator FX is a wonder driver
We've just been told by a loyal reader that Detonator FX has popped up on the Interweb, here (zip file) and we wanted to check our story about it.
Learning that performance could be increased by driver update from 20 to 50 percent was quite unrealistic to us but it seems to us that Nvidia has made a wonder driver to release.
We ran four benchmarks 3dmarks 2001SE and 2003, Aquanox and Quake 3.
3Dmark 2001SE jumped from 7295 to magnificent 10870 which is about a 33 percent increase in speed, while the famous nature test was scoring 32.1FPS and with Detonator FX 44.03 scores 66.1 and so is 50 percent faster than with 43.45 that we used.
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Plant thieves warned off
Scottish conservation groups and the police are joining forces in a campaign to stamp out the crime of stealing wild plants.
The campaigners are handing out postcards of bluebells, with the message Stolen from the Wild.
The cards tell people many favourite garden plants like bluebells and snowdrops are stolen from wild populations.
If the thefts continue, the organisers say, it could put entire species of plant at risk.
The campaign is being launched in Scotland by Strathclyde Police, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), the government's wildlife advisers, and Plantlife Scotland. It is called Paw - Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime.
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Apple sells 2 million songs in 16 days
In just 16 days, Apple Computer Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) reported more than two million songs have been downloaded off its new iTunes Music Store since its launch.
The Cupertino company, which charges 99 cents per song, said more than half the songs purchased were purchased as albums. The service has more than 200,000 tracks for sale. The service is available only for Macintosh users, but a Windows version is expected for release by the end of the year.
Users can listen to 30 seconds of free previews of songs, download them and transfer them to CDs up to 10 times before they must shuffle the playlist order. They can move the tracks to as many of the iPod digital music players as they wish, and can move them to up to three Macintosh computers.
Apple had added more than 4,300 songs to its original list on May 13, including five albums from The Doors.
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'Phonics' Album Pirated Online Weeks Before Release
Stereophonics' record label bosses are threatening legal action after fans got their hands on the band's next album - weeks before its official release.
The Cwmaman trio's fourth album, You Gotta Go There To Come Back, is not released until June 2.
But a copy of the 13-track recording is already available for free on some websites.
The band is just the latest to fall prey to illegal internet downloaders, joining Radiohead, Super Furry Animals, Madonna and many others.
They recently experienced the same embarrassment, their forthcoming albums being leaked online up to three months in advance.
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Nanotech Gets Down to Business
If the excitement at New York's NanoBusiness Conference is any guide, future historians will declare early 2003 to be nanotechnology's tipping point, the pivot on which the industry slid from "not quite ready" to "raring to go."
In a little less than a year since the last conference, major corporations like General Electric and the various remains of Bell Labs have formed, increased funding for or spun off dedicated nanotech units. Though the venture capital community has shrunk back to mid-1990s levels of funding, the big venture-capital players like Venrock, Polaris and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers are all investing what money they have in nanotech.
"It's not a fad. It's integral to technology companies' R&D pipeline, and the sophisticated investors know that," said Josh Wolfe, a co-founder and Managing Partner of Lux Capital focusing on investments in nanotechnology.
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Nvidia set to up GeForce FX 5600 speeds
Nvidia is preparing to boost the performance of its GeForce FX 5600 graphics chip, the company told The Register yesterday.
The GeForce FX 5600 Ultra core currently clocks at 350MHz, the same as its memory clock frequency. However, both speeds will soon be raised to 400MHz, in the form of the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra, the company said.
The current Ultra has a memory bandwidth of 11.2GBps. With the memory clock increase, that figure will rise to 12.8GBps. Upping the core clock to 400MHz, should boost the part's fill rate from 1.4 billion texels per second to 1.6 billion.
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Apple's Next Move: TiVo?
Everyone who has TiVo (TIVO) loves TiVo; it is to television what Macintosh was to computing -- a revelation. Which is exactly why Apple (AAPL) should buy TiVo and once again redefine the intersection of culture and technology.
Folks love TiVo for the same reason they loved the Mac in 1984 and the iPod in 2001: It gives control back to the end user. TiVo viewers call the shots regarding when, how, and -- soon -- even where they watch. Once content or access is purchased, the end user is in charge, just like with the iPod.
But unlike the iPod, TiVo and systems like it are in serious trouble. The culprit is the entertainment industry. TiVo has an abeyant Napster-like quality -- and the content business is scared silly that it will not only destroy advertising revenues but become the platform for video swapping on the Internet. Case in point: A coalition of entertainment companies recently sued TiVo competitor Sonicblue into bankruptcy.
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Is Palladium Getting a Bad Rap?
According to Microsoft, a flood of FUD -- spooky rumors intended to cause fear, uncertainty and doubt -- are swirling around its Next Generation Secure Computing Base.
Also known as Palladium, NGSCB is comprised of new software and hardware that will work in tandem to protect users' data from malicious hackers, viruses and spyware.
NGSCB software components debuted last week at the Windows Developers Conference and Microsoft plans to include the software in the next version of the Windows XP operating system, code-named Longhorn and slated for release in 2005. NGSCB-ready hardware should be available in the latter half of 2004.
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Nintendo dismisses Sony Game Boy rival
Nintendo Co. Ltd., whose portable Game Boy video game player has dominated that market since the 1980s, shrugged off Sony Corp.'s plans to unveil a rival device and instead focused its efforts on new games.
Sony has already raced past Nintendo to the top of the game console market since launching its PlayStation franchise nearly 10 years ago. Sony now wants to take on the handheld market with its new "PSP" handheld device that will debut by the end of 2004.
"The fact that they are putting a lot of features into it (PSP) is very Sony-like, but at the moment we dominate the handheld market and there is no need for us to be overly concerned right now," Iwata said Tuesday at a press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the video game industry trade show. "We will continue to do what we do best."
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Large fish 'may follow dinosaurs'
The destruction wrought on the world's oceans by industrial fishing is made clear in a shocking new report.
The analysis, published in the scientific journal Nature, suggests 90% of large predator fish have been cleared from the seas in the past 50 years.
The authors say the era of "heroic" fish - the truly huge swordfish, marlin and sharks that inspired legends and novels - is now well and truly over.
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Sony to launch portable console
Sony Computer Entertainment (SEC) has surprised industry watchers by announcing it will launch a portable game console at the end of 2004.
SEC, maker of the popular PlayStation game console series, said its new handheld console would be called PSP and extend PlayStation's reach.
But the news wiped almost 10% off shares in rival Nintendo, until now the clear leader in the handheld game market.
Sony shares rose 5% on the news, as analysts suggested the group had made a strong move.
"While Nintendo still holds the competitive edge in the market for portable games, it is safe to assume that this move by Sony will eat into Nintendo's profits down the road," said Makoto Suzuki, a senior fund manager at Chuo Mitsui Asset Management.
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Threats to Microsoft grow
Interest in alternatives to Microsoft is continuing to grow, according to new research from analyst firm Gartner.
Gartner said licensing issues, security breaches and "the grass-roots power of open-source software" were leading government and businesses around the world to consider their options
Linux and Open Office were the most popular Microsoft alternatives.
The approaches to Microsoft varied by region, with a mixed appraoch of both open source and local vendors favoured in the Asia-Pacific - including Australia - along with China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and several European countries.
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Nintendo: Gamecube Sequel Will Be First
As an aside to its display of Gamecube action today, Nintendo confirmed that it is already well into development of its next home console, and that it is resolved to be the first next-generation console to market, appearing ahead of its competitors from Microsoft and Sony. Exactly when it would have to release to be first of course isn't clear, and Nintendo is keeping mum on the subject, but with Sony's next console likely to appear around 2005 or 2006, Nintendo's new console would have to be fairly nearby from the long-term view.
There's not likely to be much more to say on this subject for some time, but it's worth keeping track of as the Gamecube's life continues.
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Apple seeks a slice of Europe
Computer company Apple is negotiating with record labels to launch its iTunes online music download service in Europe by the end of the year following the venture's much-hyped US debut.
Apple launched iTunes in the US two weeks ago. It has got off to a strong start with more than 1m songs downloaded in its first week.
Apple and its chief executive Steve Jobs now want to show it can solve the problems facing record companies in Europe too. The secret of Mr Jobs' success is partly to do with Apple's cachet, its reputation for good design and for championing consumers rather than corporations.
It is also to do with the simplicity of the transaction. Songs cost 99 cents to download, and the company has developed software that allows users to "burn" an unlimited number of tracks on to a CD or transfer them to the Apple iPod portable music player.
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Extinction nears for whales and dolphins
Some whales, dolphins and porpoises are now so endangered they could vanish within a decade, scientists say.
The warning comes from an international group of cetacean experts at IUCN-The World Conservation Union.
They say species like the baiji (the Yangtze River dolphin) are unlikely to last for another 10 years.
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