Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Well, that didn’t take long. Atul Malhotra, the HP executive charged with stealing printer market data when he left IBM and sending it to his new colleagues at HP with the genius-level subject line “For Your Eyes Only,” has pled guilty to one count of theft of trade secrets. Malhotra probably made the right choice — he specifically requested the information just before he left IBM and HP itself investigated and turned him in when he was found sending it around, so the case against him was pretty airtight. It’s not clear what his plea deal is, but sentencing is scheduled for October 29, and he can get up to 10 years in the clink with a fine of up to a quarter-million dollars. Crime don’t pay, kids.

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

The printer market isn’t exactly full of the most intersting news, but it’s still big money, and big money tends to bring out the worst in people — like former HP VP Atul Malhotra, who was just charged with stealing trade secrets from his former employer IBM and emailing them to other HP execs. Apparently Malhotra requested some confidential sales data two months before he went from the three-letter company to the two-letter one, and when he got there he hit up some other senior execs with the files — marking the subject line “For Your Eyes Only.” Yeah, that’s an effective way to keep a lid on things. Malhotra was fired from HP in 2006, so all this went down some time ago, and HP says it actually conducted an internal investigation about the matter before firing Malhotra and reporting the theft to both IBM and the authorities. Sure, sure — but we’ll know what’s up when the next HP AIO is running a Cell chip.

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Stacking silicon into what are called 3D chips is something IBM does as good as, if not better than, any other screener. Problem is, all those stacked circuits create a an exponential amount of heat, and traditional cooling methods don’t scale. So what does IBM do? It comes up with integrated water channels about the size of a human hair that it’s calling “interlayer cooling.” According to IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory, this is the first tech of its kind. The 50 micron channels between individual chip layers are performing at 180 watt/cm² per layer for a stack with a typical footprint of 4 cm². In other words, it works.

[Via TG Daily]

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Filed under: Storage

It wasn’t long ago that IBM promised to unleash its racetrack MRAM (magnetoresistive RAM) on a power and speed-hungry computing public, but now Toshiba says its 1GB MRAM chips are “almost ready”. The chips use Spin-RAM (STT-RAM) and Toshiba fully expects them to take over where DRAM left off by 2015. They say their new chips use about 10 percent the energy used by DRAM and, like MRAM is supposed to do, retain memory even after the power supply has been cut off. So what does this mean? Instant boot-up, fast access times, and super-low power consumption. While MRAM has been announced by others, capacities and speeds promised by this 1GB jobby from Toshiba will certainly make things worthwhile.

[Via MRAM-info]

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Filed under: Storage

So, how do you go about impressing the world after busting out a few systems based around the “fastest chip on Earth?” By getting us all worked up for a little thing called racetrack memory, that’s how. Far from being the first memory technology that runs laps around the DIMMs we’re relying on today, IBM researchers are suggesting that this iteration could enable users to store substantially more data at a lower cost and be available in around a decade. Put simply, the gurus working the project have discovered a way to overcome the prohibitively expensive process of manipulating domain walls in magnetic storage, essentially making a long-standing approach entirely more viable. If you’re totally in nerd heaven right now, we assure you, checking out the explanatory video waiting after the jump is a must-do.

[Via BBC]

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Filed under: Desktops

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Filed under: Desktops

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Pretty much anything that’s predictably repetitive can be automated. As such, we expect corporate lawyers to be replaced by shiny dull robots just as soon as AI advances sufficiently beyond Japanese pet translators. Robots… lawyers… oh wait. Anyway, ASUS has mechanically responded to IBM’s patent lawsuit with a scripted suit all its own. ASUS claims that IBM is violating two of its patents related to server technology and storage on the Internet. That’s two claimed violations against IBM vs. three against ASUS — if this were a playground, IBM would win and ASUS would have to hand over its lunch money. Instead, this is big time patent law so it’ll cost somebody millions and create months of distraction.

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Merely months after IBM first inserted silicon nanophotonics into our memory bank, and just weeks after we drooled all over ourselves reading about its green optical link, the mega-corp has chosen St. Patrick’s Day to trumpet the development of the “world’s tiniest nanophotonic switch.” The device, which boasts a footprint “about 100 times smaller than the cross section of a human hair,” is said to be a vital part of creating an on-chip optical network. More specifically, it’s bringing the gurus behind it one step closer to conjuring up multi-core CPUs that transmit data with light pulses rather than relying on electrical signals on copper wires. This particular switch would essentially divert traffic within the network, ensuring that “optical messages from one processor core could efficiently get to any of the other cores on the chip.” Keep on livin’ the dream IBM — just ping us when this stuff is anywhere near ready for the commercial market.

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

As of this morning you can add Hitachi to the list of cohorts IBM has gathered in its quest for sub-32nm circuitry. Hitachi’s 2-year semiconductor research agreement — a first between IBM and Hitachi — puts them under a loose-knit alliance with AMD, Chartered, Freescale, Infineon, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and STMicroelectronics. The notable, non-member here is of course, Intel; that little company making “45-nm processes” and “Hi-K metal gate” house-hold terms amongst geeky, type-A adopters of consumer electronics. Yes, we’re looking at you.

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Filed under: Networking

So IBM is apparently working like crazy on some next-gen communications technology that — ready to have your mind blown? — “uses light instead of wires to send information.” We know, this is some crazy future crap up in here, but check it out. Apparently this so-called light-based communications system is supposed to be ten times more power efficient than others in its class, and can transfer data at speeds far greater than our current 4Mbps token-ring networks and even the next-gen 10BASE2 Ethernet (as if!); if optical data communications are actually real, well, it’s just in time because we’ve been seriously maxing out our Tandy 1000 playing MUDs. Touting such other gibberish as “high definition content,” and “ex-aflop supercomputing,” IBM’s Optocards (which feature integrated “Optochips”) can apparently move data at up to 8Tbps / 1TBps per second, which isn’t quite up to snuff to compete with Alcatel-Lucent’s latest, but is still, like, way more than necessary for accessing the Engadget BBS.

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Shocking as it may seem, mainframe computing has never really gone away — even in this age of modular PS3-based supercomputers, financial institutions, retailers, and other large corporations still buy the big iron, which means IBM still makes it. The company’s latest, the fridge-sized System z10, follows up on the million-dollar System z9 released three years ago with faster, cooler processors, more energy efficient designs, 70 percent more computing capacity — and a smaller price tag, starting at just south of a million dollars this time. Hilariously, the z10 caused a bit of a mainframe Osbourne effect: eager customers holding off on z9 purchases in anticipation of the z10 caused a 15 percent drop in IBM’s mainframe revenue last quarter. Mainframe fanboys? Nothing surprises us anymore.

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Filed under: Desktops, Networking

Well, it sure looks like IBM is keeping all its supercomputing bases covered these days, with it not only working on a chip-sized supercomputer, but a global-scale shared computer that’d be capable of “hosting the entire internet as an application.” That latter word comes in the form of a white paper ambitiously dubbed “Project Kittyhawk” (we’re guessing they found “Project Mulitvac” a little too obvious), which aims to explore the construction and implications of such a massive scale computer. That apparently wouldn’t be a SETI or Folding@home-style shared computer consisting of everyday PCs, however, with it instead relying on IBM’s petaflopping Blue Gene/P as a common platform, which would effectively be able to run any web-scale application you could throw at it. Of course, none of that has moved very far beyond the page just yet, so you can rest easy that there’s still no supercomputer out there that’s capable of bringing the entire internet to the halt on a whim, at least that we know of.

[Via Slashdot]

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Filed under: Gaming

IBM might be lagging slightly behind the likes of Intel and Microsoft in the 45nm department, but rest assured that a 45nm version of Cell is in the works and most certainly headed for the PS3. Microsoft told us that 45nm for Xbox was in the works last year, and Intel is obviously churning out Penryn chips as we speak, but IBM has finally solidified its own 45nm plans for Cell, and will change over production “soon.” The chip will use about 40 percent less power and will be 34 percent smaller than the 65nm version. That means less heat and more reliability, which of course means cost savings for Sony which will (theoretically) be passed on to consumers before too terribly long.

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Filed under: Cellphones

Remember that formal announcement of Lotus Notes Mail on the iPhone? Right, Apple’s first big corporate iPhone push which the AP said would happen at LotusSphere? Not going to happen, at least not yet. An IBM spokesperson told ZDNet Australia, “It’s not something that (is) ready to go out and market or launch.” In other words, Jobs heard about IBM’s plan to steal his February SDK-launch thunder and shut down the announcement right quick. The most absurd part of all this has to be an enterprise adoption comment made by the so-called analyst, Kevin McIsaac, at IBRS (I be arse?). He said, “I can’t really imagine someone who’s really hip and cool — like an iPhone user — wanting to use Lotus Notes.” Since when do the personal desires of users and corporate IT policy have anything in common Kev?

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Filed under: Cellphones

var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/apple/iPhone_goes_corporate_AT_T_announces_business_plan’; Without a 3G iPhone announcement at MacWorld, Apple remains focused on increasing the penetration of their generation-one handset. True to the rumors circulating the intertubes last week, AT&T is now offering the iPhone to business customers. Plans break down as follows:

• 2 year commitment, voice service, and data plan required
• $45 per month for unlimited data, visual voicemail, and 200 SMSes; $55 ups the SMS limit to 1,500; $65 for unlimited everything
• An extra $25 per month nabs a 20MB montly data plan good for 29 countries, $60 per month ups the limit to 50MB
• Activate by 31 March and qualified accounts will receive a service credit of $25 per month good through 31 December, 2008 — yeah, that’s a sweet deal

We have a funny feeling that the timing of this has something to do with IBM’s imminent announcement of Lotus Notes mail for the iPhone. Now get on the horn to IT, they’ll be dreading your call.

[Thanks, Brandon B.]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Toshiba just announced its membership in an alliance to develop system chips using 32-nm circuitry. That’s well below the existing 45-nm processes used in manufacturing Intel’s Penryn, for example. The alliance includes IBM, AMD, Samsung, Infineon, Freescale, and Singapore’s Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing. No surprise really, what with Tosh already in bed with IBM to develop chips using 32-nm processes. The agreement is good until 2010 and covers design, development, and the production of the itty bitty circuitry. A move which should reduce manufacturing costs for the alliance with the savings passed along to us consumers.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

It’s already developed a “gas gauge” for its servers, and a greener means of recycling silicon, but IBM now looks to be taking its increasing environmental awareness to an even larger scale, with it, Enterprise Information Management, and Evergreen Energy developing a greenhouse gas meter that promises to measure the carbon output of various industries and devices, according to IDG. Dubbed GreenCert, the software employs a whole mess of IBM tools including various WebSphere applications, along with an “engine” designed by the folks at C-Lock in order to take a snapshot of a particular company’s carbon footprint. It then does it’s thing again after the company’s taken measures to reduce its carbon emissions, giving them proof of their reductions which they can use to get carbon emission credits that can be traded on the carbon market. The software won’t be available in its final form until sometime in the first half of 2008, however, but those looking to get a jump on things can apparently get a beta version from C-Lock right now.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

In what’s becoming a common strategy by patent plaintiffs to try and speed up the settlement process, IBM has asked the United States International Trade Commission to ban imports of Asus computers due to claimed patent violations. The two companies had a patent license that expired in December of 2004, and IBM says Asus has continued to use the disputed tech since that time, in both Asus-branded machines and machines it’s OEM’d for others, like Apple and Dell. IBM isn’t getting specific about which patents are being infringed, except to say that it’s three patents that cover “important aspects of computer systems, including power supplies, computer cooling and computer clustering capabilities.” As always with ITC hearings, there’s a 45-day window for the Commission to make a determination, so you may want to snap up that Eee PC sooner rather than later.

Disclaimer: Although this post was written by an attorney, it is not meant to be legal advice or analysis and should not be taken as such.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!