Toshiba's quantum leap

As processor manufacturers like Intel and AMD produce CPUs using increasingly smaller processes, Toshiba is developing a single electron transistor (SET) to jump in when the established process becomes too unstable. The drive to reduce the scale of processor production is twofold: it increases speed, as electrons have less distance to travel, and reduces heat output, allowing the processor to be pushed faster without the need for expensive cooling. But there is a limit, predicted to be around the sub-100 nanometer mark, where the distance between circuit paths is so small that electrons may jump across. ...more

Amazon reveals an Apple Power Mac upgrade

Amazon has revealed details of an upgrade to Apple's Power Mac range. The US incarnation of the online retailer is listing a dual 2.7GHz model complete with 512MB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive and a 16x SuperDrive. ...more

Staff remain the weakest link for IT security

Small businesses in the UK blame staff for their IT security woes, according to a survey from the Institute of Directors and McAfee. 50 per cent of those surveyed considered their employees were to blame for the damage caused by virus infections. Although three quarters say they have security policies in place, two thirds of them don't believe their employees pay any heed to these policies. ...more

LEGO goes to the movies

Things have moved on a lot since I was first introduced to these plastic building blocks when I was a wee nipper. First, they tried to put motors into LEGO blocks, then it was computers and now those Dutch scallywags want our children to have hands-on experience of video editing with their brand new LEGO Moviemaker package. Produced in association with Pinnacle Systems, the pack includes LEGO studio software, which has been aimed at the younger Steven Spielbergs out there. ...more

AMD damps down expectations ahead of Q3 results

AMD has revised its financial outlook, ahead of reporting third quarter results later this week. In previous years - when AMD was struggling to regain profitability - Flash memory sales were the bedrock of the company's revenues. Now, however, with AMD prospering with its AMD64 processor platform, it seems those memory sales are softening. ...more