Apple MacBook owners organizing class action lawsuit

Owners of Apple Computer's new 13-inch MacBook notebooks, whose systems are plagued by intermittent shutdown issues, have become fed up with extended repair times and inadequate resolutions to the problem, and are now organizing a class action lawsuit against the Mac maker.

The issue, which users have dubbed "RSS," or Random Shutdown Syndrome, has been well documented on Apple's discussion boards and other forums around the web. During ordinary use, affected MacBooks will randomly shut down, effectively rendering the systems unreliable.

Users have reported shutdown intervals anywhere from once a week to several times a day. Sometimes, one random shutdown will occur within minutes of the previous one, making the notebooks completely unusable.

Compounding frustrations is Apple's inability so far to completely remedy the issue for most users after holding their faulty systems at repair depots for lengthy periods of time.

This is what Apple gets for using Intel motherboards and integrated graphics chipset.

This isn't the portable pad I'm using, but I will say, the hardware glitches I've seen got a lot worse under 10.4.8.

Transmeta seeks Core 2 Duo injunction against Intel

A new lawsuit filed against Intel Corp. on behalf of Transmeta threatens to prevent the chipmaker from shipping microprocessors to PC manufacturers such as Apple Computer.

According to InfoWorld, Transmeta is charging Intel with violating 10 of its patents covering processor design and power efficiency techniques.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, seeks damages, royalty payments, and an injunction barring Intel from selling infringing products such as the Pentium III, Pentium 4, Pentium M, Core and Core 2 processors.

The lawsuit comes after the two companies failed to agree to licensing terms, said Transmeta's President and Chief Executive Officer Arthur Swift. "Friendly win-win discussions between the two parties had broken down and we thought is was appropriate now to turn to the courts."

I'm sure this is true. Most of the big semiconductor manufacturers have wide cross-licensing of patents. Without these power-reducing technologies referred to in this article, Intel would not be currently supplying CPUs for Mac portables. You can bet that much.

Intel to preview quad-core Xeon MP

Intel to preview quad-core Xeon MP
Intel is planning to preview on Friday its ultra-high-end, quad-core Xeon MP processor. The chip, code-named Tigerton, is scheduled to ship in the second half of 2007, an Intel spokesman confirmed.
Intel will show off the processor at a media briefing to be held in San Francisco. The Tigerton device will officially ship under the Xeon MP 7000 Series moniker. The MP designation stands for multiprocessor. This means that the 7000-Series parts are intended for use in servers with multiple sockets; thus, a two-socket system with dual Series-7000 MP chips would in fact have eight physical CPU cores.

It’s a Shipping Container. No, It’s a Data Center in a Box

MENLO PARK, Calif., Oct. 16 — Sun Microsystems has developed a novel “data center in a box” in an effort to transform the fundamental economics of corporate computing.

The expandable computer system, called Project Blackbox, is based on a standard 20-foot shipping container and can be deployed virtually anywhere there is electricity, chilled water and an Internet connection.

Designed by Danny Hillis, giant among nerds.

Apple's "Covert op" to Bring down Microsoft

NEW YORK ( Reuters) - Some of Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod digital music players shipped in the past month carry a computer virus, according to a posting on Apple's technical support Web site.

Carbon uber alles!

Poser 7 kommt früher auf den Markt, als es Hersteller e frontier ursprünglich angekündigt hatte. Die nächste Version der Software, mit der Profis und Animateure 3D-Figuren und Animationen erstellen, soll in englischer Sprache noch in diesem Quartal erscheinen.