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"This is a big psychological benefit to have the seal of approval from a major game company," Maher said. "I don't see this as a big thing that sweeps through the industry and each of the graphics chipmakers has their pet game developers. But Nvidia has been working on this deal for a long time, and it's really important to them."

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MySQL is aiming for speedier development cycles than most database companies. The company is currently focusing on two products: MySQL versions 4.1 and 5.0. It released the binaries of 4.1 this week and plans to unveil a final version in about eight months. A final version 5.0 should be available about six months after that.

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Squeezing more memory into tight spaces is crucial the the success of the flash-memory industry. Demand for flash memory, used to store data and code in cell phones and other consumer devices, is growing dramatically. The amount of flash in some phones has more than doubled within a year. Shrinking the size of chips, however, is getting harder. Clever packaging effectively allows semiconductor manufacturers to accommodate the demand for memory without putting too much stress on their manufacturing plants.

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Auction fraud led the pack, as it did in 2001 and 2000, accounting for 46 percent of complaints the unit referred to law enforcement in 2002. Online auctioneers have been the target of numerous fraud schemes, ranging from shill bidding, in which sellers bid on their own auctions to artificially jack up the price, to identity-theft schemes.

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Under the old Windows CE program, developers could access and modify the source code and directly ship a device with those modifications. Under the revision, which Microsoft calls the Windows CE Shared Source Premium License Program, manufacturers would have full access to the operating system source code and be able to make modifications. But unlike open-source development, where modifications to code that's intended for outside distribution must be freely published, some changes would either belong to Microsoft or be licensed back to the company.

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Motorola said that although it builds versatile wireless access products, it recognizes that customers need products that go beyond what the company offers. Some of the products and services offered through the affiliate companies include ISP (Internet service provider) operations tools, financing services and video-surveillance equipment.

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Microsoft said Wednesday that it will offer a 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003 for AMD's Opteron server chip. The software giant also intends to release a 64-bit variant of Windows XP for the chipmaker's Athlon 64 processor for desktops and notebooks.

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Holding licenses on 400MHz and 533MHz FSB (front-side bus) standards, which VIA failed to obtain from Intel earlier, SiS has enjoyed rising P4 chipset shipments the past few quarters. VIA, on the other hand, has seen its sales and market share hampered by its licensing dispute with the chip giant.

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"I've been working the past two years on this issue, sometimes with very generous support from HP," Perens said. "But it became kind of a problem for HP, because I would say things for open source that would be very embarrassing to the company. I need to be able to say what I want to say, and thus people who send me money may prefer not to have their names associated with the donation."

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Building an 802.16a network is up to half as expensive as installing a T1 line for operators, said WiMAX President Margaret LaBrecque, who is also a spokeswoman for Intel's broadband wireless initiatives group. By using 802.16a gear to build a wireless network, operators would be able to make broadband access available to customers sooner, because it would not entail major construction.

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The enterprise-focused Tungsten C is expected to be the first Palm handheld to come with built-in 802.11b wireless networking and the first Palm device to use an Intel XScale processor. Targeted at consumers, Palm's new Zire 71 is expected to feature an integrated camera.

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The advisory has a link for a section of the Web site with security tools, one of which is a script written in the PERL programming language that quickly takes advantage of the security hole. Called "trans2root.pl," the script causes the compromised computer to return a root shell, which allows an attacker full access to the victim's computer.

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The leaked code appears to be from a Microsoft corporate customer that subscribes to one of the company's volume-licensing programs, the representative said. Rumors circulating on enthusiast Web sites, such as Neowin and WinBeta, identified the leak as a 3-in-1 code, meaning that it would work with three different versions of Windows Server 2003.

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Under the terms, Via has been granted a 10-year cross-license to the relevant parts of Intel's patent portfolio, which will let it make so-called "x86 compatible" chipsets and processors for the notebook and desktop market. That is, Via can make chips that will run Windows and/or Linux software and largely function like today's Pentium or Athlon chips.

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Meanwhile, unit sales of sub-$800 desktops grew by 17 percent, allowing the category to capture a whopping 72.9 percent of total desktop unit sales in February, up from 56.7 percent in the same month last year, he said.

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Nvidia is planning to shortly introduce a new-generation core logic chipset to support upcoming 400MHz FSB (front-side bus) Barton-core Athlon XP processors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), said Drew Henry, Nvidia’s senior director of platform product management, in a telephone interview. He gave no details on the product’s name and design, however, saying only that Nvidia would maintain its lead in product specifications. Currently, Nvidia’s nForce2 is the only chipset supporting DDR400 standard, dual-channel memory architecture and a 400MHz FSB, Henry said. Although rival VIA Technologies is said to claim that its new KT400A would be able to deliver performance greatly closer to the nForce2 through single-channel memory architecture, Henry noted that the nForce2 still leads in performance, as it can offer higher speed support for standards like USB 2.0 and AGP 8x graphics technologies.

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Q: Are you satisfied with voice coverage?
A: We have not yet achieved the original dream. There was no technical reason why cellular shouldn't be as reliable and as low in cost as a wired phone. If you can serve enough people from a single station and you don't have to run wires to a new location, it ought to be lower in cost. The carriers have to move onto the next generation of technology. And they ought to focus instead of looking for different applications and forcing these applications on people; they ought to be fixing the fundamental problem: getting voice right. You can make a call, but how long can you keep talking before it drops?

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As a result, porn spam could begin to crop up in sexual harassment complaints from employees offended by the material. Even if companies aren't the source of such messages, they could be liable for hefty civil fines if managers know that porn spam is a problem and don't move to address it.

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Answer the following question correctly and we'll put a nickel in your Amazon.com account," its home page recently announced. "True or false: The Kitchen & Housewares store carries every product currently made by Le Creuset.

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DuPont Displays on April 3 announced that it has launched a DuPont Olight brand, giving a new identity for its future OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display products and signaling its commitment to OLED technology. Derived from the words OLED and light, the Olight brand name will represent displays featuring superior brightness and contrast ratio, fast response time and wide viewing angles, the company said. Equipped with a pilot line in Santa Barbara, California and a full production line via partner RiTdisplay in Hsinchu, Taiwan, the company expects initial applications for Olight products to be in the consumer, industrial and medical areas.

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Under a joint program with Ewing, New Jersey-based Universal Display Corporation (UDC), DuPont Displays’ Experimental Station has developed solution-processed devices (soluble OLED material sets) that contain green phosphorescent emitters with electrical efficiencies of 65cd/A, representing a major step that will further lead to its commercialization. The company also has demonstrated red and blue devices with electrical efficiencies of 10cd/A and 4cd/A, respectively. In addition, extrapolating from accelerated aging tests, DuPont Displays’ Santa Barbara research team is confident that it has demonstrated a representative set of red, green and blue materials that exhibits 10,000 hours of lifetime.