Michael Singer

Apple Computer announced new iPod devices today to help flesh out its digital music line. But beyond the flash and dazzle of the popular music player, analysts say the company has helped make portable storage a sexy consumer commodity. With over 10 million iPods sold to date, the company is sitting on a nest egg […]

Two Dell customers in California have filed class-action lawsuits against the company for what their lawyers call bait-and-switch marketing tactics. San Francisco residents Rosemary M. Weber and Jonathan V. Holtzman say they got a bum deal when it came to ordering through Dell’s catalogue. Both complained they had been pressured by salespeople with promises of […]

Macromedia is expanding the reach and impact of its Flash empire with the help of Akamai Technologies . The two companies launched an on-demand Flash streaming media service this week based on Macromedia Flash Communication Server software and Akamai’s EdgePlatform. The partnership is designed to help companies liven up their Web sites with Flash-based content […]

With the future of its desktop processors heading toward 64-bit instructions, what’s Intel to do with its 32-bit line? Sell them to embedded product manufacturers. The chipmaker is serving up a branch of its Pentium M and Celeron M families for embedded applications like communications equipment, industrial box and panel PCs, as well as in-car […]

AMD skirted a potentially nasty patent lawsuit with a stock purchase and licensing agreement from Patriot Scientific . The No. 2 chipmaker confirmed today that it bought restricted shares of Patriot stock, obtained rights to make and sell Patriot’s IGNITE 32-bit stack microprocessor and obtained rights to the controversial “ShBoom” microprocessor patent portfolio in its […]

Sun Microsystems is revisiting its bread and butter customers with new servers based on its latest UltraSPARC IV chip. The company said it began shipping Sun Enterprise 2900, 4900, 6900, 20000 and 25000 servers today to complement the Sun Fire V490 and V890, which started shipping last week. Each one comes with at least one […]

HP is prepping a new class of products it hopes will set Cisco Systems and other networking rivals on their ears. As part of its ProCurve family of products, HP announced its first ever ProCurve Secure Router 7000dl series and its Access Controller Module software ($5,499) for the ProCurve Switch 5300xl. Shipping on April 1, […]

With chip advances from AMD and IBM on its tail, Intel burst into the 64-bit desktop market today with a jazzed up version of its Pentium processor family. After nearly a year of saying the desktop was not ready for anything but 32-bit applications, the company said it is now shipping five Pentium 4 chips […]

Intel announced new technology today that embeds TCP/IP Offload Engine (TOE) functions on a processor instead of a network card. The chipmaking giant said the problem is that CPU performance and network bandwidth have improved, but not the method for moving TCP/IP data. Dubbed the Intel I/O Acceleration Technology (I/OAT), the chipset add-on speeds up […]

Sun Microsystems posted new projects to its developers’ site today that the company says will help improve Java-based graphics across multiple platforms. Java Advanced Imaging (JAI) and JAI Image I/O Tools are now available on Sun’s java.net for download. Sun said the projects simplify the way imaging applications are made and where they are played […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Sun Microsystems will be releasing a separate version of its Solaris 10 operating system for military-grade networks later this year, executives said Thursday. John Loiacono, executive vice president of software at Sun, said the updated version would be based on the current build of its enterprise OS, which is a combination of […]

Scientists with Intel announced a new technology they say could vastly help improve the way high-quality lasers and optical devices are used in computers. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said its researchers have found a way to create a continuous, high-quality laser beam using the crystalline structure of silicon and combining it with a light […]