AMD looking for gold beyond PCs

A new Alchemy processor from AMD targets the mobile Internet appliance market. Looking beyond PCs, to such mobile devices as Web pads and PDAs, the Alchemy Au1100 processor has emerged from AMD's recent acquisition - in February 2002 - of Alchemy Semiconductor. AMD sees a convergence of technologies (such as wireless broadband communications, low-power but high-performance processors and innovatively-designed mobile devices) as the future beyond personal computers sitting on desktops. ...more

Microsoft targets robots

Software giant Microsoft is taking a first step away from office software towards more industrial applications with the preview of the Microsoft Robotics Studio. Aimed at a range of robotic researchers in areas as diverse as academic, hobbyist and commercial development, the Robotics software is engineered differently from the average desktop operating system. In order to function and respond in the real world, it has to be able to receive and process concurrent information from its sensors in real time and feed it back instantly as a response through its motors - and that is without any autonomous decision making built in. ...more

Report: Beyond the Backlash - Part 2

Yesterday saw a meeting of representatives from industry, NGOs and government bodies to discuss the state of technology, the Internet and society, and how to innovate it in what is something of a hiatus following dot-com collapse and all those broken promises of the Internet's potential. In a series of plenary sessions and workshops, a range of issues came up for hot debate, from the perennial thorn of broadband, to how should the Web be governed and crime dealt with, and how best we can assimilate this new space into our culture. What became clear throughout all the sessions is that technology and the Internet is all things to all people. ...more

BenQ boasts a faster shade of grey

BenQ says the technology in its new LCD range will improve fast-motion images. Its Advanced Motion Accelerator (AMA) speeds up response times between shades of grey. It claims that while most monitor manufacturers quote response times in terms of turning a pixel on and off, this is by far the easiest task for the hardware, and the least common in terms of normal use. ...more

Oftel decides on FRIACO part 2

Telecoms regulator Oftel has told BT it must offer ISPs a fully unmetered rate for access to its network by 26 February. The new wholesale service, called ST FRIACO (single tandem flat-rate internet access call origination), improves on the existing FRIACO service because it stretches from the consumer's home, through BT's exchanges, and onto the ISP's network. At the moment ISPs can only get an unmetered rate for traffic carried from customers to the local exchanges. ...more