Expect plenty of tera/terror puns from the IT press soon, in the wake of Intel's announcement at the San Francisco IDF of "Tera Scale" a name that evokes all kinds of mental images apart from what it actually is.

What is it then? Well, it's Intel resurrecting parallel processing, but instead of having lots of separate processors, the vision is now to stick'em all inside a single CPU housing. That's like the current Core architecture, except Intel's now talking about 10-100 cores instead.

To ensure the cores can talk to each other without bottlenecks, Intel reckons the previously announced "optical interconnects" are the way forward. This is the "laser on silicon" technology that's currently coming out of Intel's labs, according to Dr Mario Paniccia, director of the chip giant's Photonics Technology Labs. Optical interconnects scale for performance almost indefinitely, and don't suffer the distance degradation that copper ones do - there's a parallel here to DSL actually.

So how far away is this? Dr Paniccia says that while Intel was able to move fast with the photonics interconnect, skipping several of the steps that researchers usually have to go through, we're still looking at five to six years before they'll go into commercial production.

Putting the laser on silicon is cheap, says Dr Paniccia says, partly because Intel can make use of its existing manufacturing resources. Using what's already there wasn't a driving factor behind the optical interconnect technology he adds when asked.

How far away are we from true optical computing? That's way off, according to Dr Paniccia. Silicon computing still has a long life ahead, as it's getting smaller and more efficient he says - and it's very cost-effective. He estimates that optical computing will appear in maybe fifteen to twenty years' time, mainly because it's up against cheap silicon.

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 8:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The "pre-texting" scandal at Hewlett-Packard rolls on, with chairwoman Patricia Dunn resigning on Friday. CEO Mark Hurd steps in as chairman of the HP board, but he too is tainted by allegations that he was involved in the dirty deeds.

Last Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Mark Hurd approved an elaborate "sting" operation targetting reporters in the Bay Area/San Francisco, in order to plug leaks.

The question now is, if Hurd set that particular operation in motion, what else did he do? Can Hewlett-Packard really afford to have a chairman like Hurd, who has now been shown as having taking part in the spying?

It's good to see Hewlett-Packard's appalling actions blow up in their faces but my money is that all large corporations do this to some extent. They pay PR agencies big money to keep detailed files on journalists, files which contain personal information as well as professional data. Many companies also record phone calls and video interviews, which is why if you speak to a company executive at their premises, you should try to look your best - you're on camera!

This isn't paranoia on my part, but on the companies in question. They and their PR trolls see you as the enemy, unless you report their corporate message almost verbatim of course. If you get a scoop of any kind, you can be sure that there will be witch-hunts conducted inside the companies, and discrete enquiries made to your editors and colleagues, often over informal lunches.

That kind of surveillance, open and clandestine, is par for the course for journalists. However, what HP has done went well beyond that and I for one will exercise particular care if I go near the Palo Altoans in the future.

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Linux and Mac users are the most vocal, but which OS is the biggest by them all?

It is Windows XP, which has increased its market share steadily over the past year. Apple's Mac OS X on the other hand has declined, but the "Other" category is up by a goodly amount.

Take all the Windows versions, and Microsoft has 94.22 per cent of the market. This despite lots of negative press for Windows, but praise heaped on Mac OS X by the media.

Could it be that users know something us journalists don't?

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 4:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

At least if you browse dodgy Russian sites, that is.

Computerworld is reporting that the so called "Web Attacker" malware has been upgraded to take advantage of an unpatched flaw in Internet Explorer 6 - this time it's Microsoft's implementation of Vector Markup Language or VML that's "holey".

VML was Microsoft's suggested standard for vector graphics, but it was rejected by the W3C. Even so, MS implemented it in IE and Office, so watch out.

I don't know if IE7 betas are vulnerable to the exploit, but for now if you're using IE, turn off Javascript, even if it's a pain.

Update According to George Ou at ZDNet, hardware Data Execution Protection (DEP), stops the exploit. Hardware DEP comes courtesy of the NX (no execute) bit in modern CPUs from Intel and AMD, and Windows XP SP2 also offers software DEP which also mitigates the exploit.

Ou also has a workaround for the VML exploit, which is well worth doing. Nobody uses VML anyway.

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm not sure what Telecom thinks of Dr Murray Milner's submission to the finance and expenditure select committee, as the former CTO of the telco says unbundling is way overdue and increased investment in FTTH is necessary.

Milner submitted to the select committee on behalf of the Institute of Professional Engineers, saying that New Zealand needs to spend $1.5 billion on shortening the copper lengths for the local loop in order to reach the government's very modest 5Mbps target. This means replacing much of the copper network with fibre-optic cabling.

This is the way we'll have infrastructure similar to what other countries already enjoy, and no, wireless isn't going to cut the mustard here. Apart from anything, Milner says wireless will cost about eight times more to deploy, to reach the 5Mbps target.

Although Milner says that the only player capable of entering into such a massive replacment is Telecom, at the same time his submission vindicates the government turning up the regulatory heat on the incumbent. Some anti-unbundling zealots point to Telecom's offers of investing more in the network in lieu of regulation, but these blinkered people conveniently forget that the telco's been playing the same game for a decade now. It should by now be abundantly clear to anyone that Telecom will only invest as little as it can get away with. Furthermore, the investment is used as a weapon to stave off regulation as well - Telecom has no qualms about pulling money out of the provinces and rural areas if a regulatory decision doesn't go its way. This is what Telecom did in December last year, when the Commerce Commission awarded TelstraClear DSL that is unconstrained in one direction.

If there were guarantees that Milner would remain independent from Telecom, he would be an ideal "Broadband Czar" to drive the operational separation of Telecom as well as the copper network replacement. New Zealand needs a techie like him to kick things off, not more lawyers and accountants interested mainly in earning more fees through increasingly convoluted and drawn out processes.

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

While Microsoft futzes around with Live apps that nobody really wants or needs, and keeps Vista under wraps to the point it'll be mouldy when it finally comes out next year, Apple's been busy.

iTunes 7 with iMovies that presumably won't be available directly to New Zealanders, new iPods, and... an iTV preview. Harry McCracken at PC World US had a look at the new stuff from Apple, and posted pics on his blog. Look at the little iPod nano in aluminium casing now for instance.

So... downloaded iTunes 7... 35MB. I can see the ads for the iTune store while it installs... long long license agreement. Updating the library and analysing the songs for gapless playback takes a dog's age, actually. Couldn't iTunes do this in the background?

There you go, iMovies. Only US$9.99 for classics like that. Shame I still have to pretend that I'm American to buy from the iTunes store though.

To be honest, the iMovies store is a bit too empty at the moment to impress. There are only two Horror movies, four SciFi ones, and seven thrillers and it's all Disney stuff which is probably the most dire film catalogue there is. A quick browse around doesn't find anything worthwhile filling your video iPod with at the moment, but there are many more TV shows for US$1.99 a pop. Hmm... paying for TV shows? Crazy idea.

Having previews before you buy is nice, but 1GB plus a file? Ouch. That's a lot for bandwidth starved Kiwis. Guess Americans are spoilt with no data caps.

Of course, the downloaded stuff will only play back on an iPod or the computer authorised for the content.

Games are available now as well, but Tetris and Pac-Man...? Come on Apple. It's 2006.

Check this out Anand slaps some Clovertowns into a new Mac Pro. Yep, it works - 8 cores!

WARNING: don't install iTunes 7. The current version has several serious bugs, like distorted sound (fixable), skipping during system activity (not fixable) and it can eat your purchased music due to DRM problems.

Wait until Apple comes out and explicitly says the problems have been sorted out.

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The Teutonic testers at Tom's Hardware got first dibs on Intel's four-core CPU somehow, and have put it through the wringer.

The new CPU, which may end up being called Core 2 Quadro, greatly impressed the crew at Tom's. New performance records galore with scores going off the charts in most benchmarks, basically.

Even so, packing four cores into one package doesn't seem to cause overheating problems despite Speedstep not working properly. A fully loaded Kentsfield box will need a beefy power supply - I'm not sure the simple Volt * Amperes calculation used by Tom's testers is correct, but it's safe to say that Core 2 Quadro likes a good sip o' lecky juice. Not as much as the older D-series processors though.

It's interesting to see that the target market for this US$1,000 processor won't actually benefit much from the two addtional cores and 8MB of cache. If you're a gamer, it looks like you're better off spending more money on a faster graphics card and perhaps more memory than slapping in a Kentsfield CPU.

This is because software is still not optimised for multiple processing cores, so it's not axiomatic for all applications that more "brains" provide faster performance. Intel has a challenge ahead there, to persuade developers to code for multiple processors - which isn't trivial, by the way. Otherwise, multicore CPUs will be nothing more than just a marketing ploy.

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 9:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With the Herald winding down its coverage of Technology even more - the Connect sections are being canned now - where do you turn to for local Geek News (tm)?

Well, you could do a whole lot worse than picking up PC World's sister publication Computerworld. Yes, I write for it too, but I was looking at this week's issue, thinking it really isn't bad at all.

Steve Bell has two good stories on how the New Zealand government is trying to limit invasive Digital Rights Management, and the progress of the anti-spam legislation through the select commitee - both very important matters that'll affect everyone in some form or the other.

Russell Brown's been to IBM's Almaden Research Centre and found out not just the size of the Internet, but also mine and Theresa Gattung's dirty secret. Oh dear.

I've got a follow-up story on Ferrit's shameless self-promotion, namely writing their own consumer reviews, as discovered by Spareroom journalist and fellow blogger Ana Samways. It got a bit mangled in the subbing but still makes sense I think. Further inside the paper, I've reviewed WorldxChange's new Xnet VFX VoIP service, plus the new Philips VoIP321 combined Skype/Landline phone.

Infoworld's chief technologist Tom Yager is always a good read and his column in this issue is no exception. Tom predicts the eclipse of Linux by Mac OS X - I hope he's wearing double asbestos undies, because that one will have the zealots flaming away in no time at all. It makes sense to me though what's being said, and I'm behind Tom on this one.

Speaking of Linux, ExtremeLabs have reviewed Novell OpenSuSE 10.1 and the results are in the current issue.

Check it out.

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you're up in the Far North and want broadband, knock on Callplus' door.

Callplus has wireless WiMAX service running up there, and promises speeds of 10Mbit/s up and down if you're within two kilometres of the base station, and 6Mbit/s withink six kilometres distance - impressive figures!

VoIP is one service Callplus runs over its wireless broadband, and the service will go national in 2007.

Unfortunately, Callplus neglected to tell me any further details such as pricing and data caps (if any), but I understand the service runs in the licensed 3.5GHz spectrum so it should be relatively interference free and have decent reach.

Good to see some new investment in broadband .

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Waikato Linux Users Group (WLUG), an incorporated society
supporting GNU/Linux and Open Source Software in the Waikato region,
is celebrating the international Software Freedom Day with a public
demonstration of open source software, to be held outside Whitcoulls
in Centreplace, Hamilton, from 9am to 5:30pm on Saturday 16th
September.

Software Freedom Day (http://softwarefreedomday.org/) is an initiative
to make the world aware of the existence, availability, and high
quality of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and to encourage its
use by as many people as possible. It is a global grassroots marketing
campaign in which volunteers from around the world are invited to
participate.

Software Freedom is not just about software being available free of
charge (though this is usually the case), but that software remains
free to be altered (open source).

Open source software is created through the collaborative efforts of
programmers from around the world, and usually made available at no
cost. It is developed for many reasons; software authors want to
scratch an itch, companies want to develop software, give it away, and
charge for support, and philanthropists, who want the world to have
software free of corporate agendas.

The open source movement has produced a free operating system for
personal computers called GNU/Linux. GNU/Linux is a free operating
system for computers. It has been developed by thousands of
programmers around the world, some working alone, some sponsored by
large computer companies such as IBM and HP. World leading websites
such as Google and Amazon also run on GNU/Linux and other Open Source
Software. Many see that it has huge potential for the "average user"
do to its excellent security record - viruses and spyware are almost
nonexistent problems on GNU/Linux.

Other open operating systems have been produced as well, particularly
based on BSD. These are used in many different ways such as servers,
PCs (including Apple). WLUG supports alll open source software
including the use of BSDs and this is part of it's charter
(http://wlug.org.nz/WlugCharter).

Because there is no one single company behind open source as a
movement, support often comes from a community. The WLUG
(http://wlug.org.nz), as the representatives of the Open Source
community in the region, wish to provide support to show people the
benefits of free software and to help them as they start using it.

Famous examples of open source software include Firefox, the popular
web browser, and OpenOffice.org, a full office suite available for all
popular computing platforms. Adventurous computer users who want to
take the plunge with GNU/Linux will find their system comes with
dozens of useful programs, including a full office suite, graphics
editors and Internet utilities, free of charge, and hundreds more can
be easily downloaded.

Computers can be configured with both GNU/Linux and their existing
software co-existing, with a menu offering a selection between the two
when a user turns on their computer. This way people can carefully try
new software without losing their existing software.

Free software offers everyone all the tools they need to improve their
computer literacy, without any upfront cost. Computers have become an
integral part of society and now drive most businesses. Computer
skills have therefore become essential to advancing a person's career.
This has benefits for the socio-economically disadvantaged, as
inexpensive second-hand computer hardware is readily available, and
free software gives people access to most applications they are likely
to need - completely for free.

"Our last public event was a great success and an educational
experience for the WLUG, as well as the participants, and resulted in
many people being able to use their PCs in a better way" says WLUG
committee member Ian McDonald. "We look forward to applying lessons
learned last year, and making this one as good as it can be."

For people who are interested in Free Software, but not yet ready to
take the leap into running GNU/Linux, the WLUG will also have
demonstrations of free software for Microsoft Windows, such as the
tremendously popular Firefox web browser and OpenOffice office
software.

We are inviting media coverage of this event. For further information,
contact the media liason, Ian McDonald, by email on
ian.mcdonald@jandi.co.nz or on 021 175 1126.

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)