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Intel’s Springdale chipsets are set to beat Taiwanese competitors to shipment, with small-volume releases as early as the first quarter of 2003 and motherboards based on the chipsets shipping by the second quarter, according to Taiwanese motherboard makers.

Taiwanese chipset designers VIA Technologies and Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) may not enter volume production of their dual-channel DDR400-supporting, 800MHz FSB (front-side bus) chipsets – the PT600 and 655FX, respectively – until the second quarter.

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Privacy remains a stumbling block for e-commerce as a whole, according to comScore's survey, with 38 percent of the panel describing themselves as "uncomfortable" giving out credit card information online. Roughly the same percentage said they worried about the security of online financial transactions, and 40 percent expressed concern over online privacy generally.

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About 60 percent of 2,000 people surveyed in the Pew Internet and American Life Project study said they use the Web regularly. Two-thirds of those had been online for three or more years.

At least 80 percent of the Internet users questioned in September and October said they expect to find reliable information about news events, health care and government services on the Web.

Almost as many Internet users, 79 percent, said they expect to find a business with a Web site that will give them information about a product they are considering buying.

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For users, the eventual arrival of 16X drives will bring big benefits. At that speed drives will be capable of writing data at 176 megabits per second (mbps) which means a complete 4.7GB DVD disc can be written in three and a half minutes, according to Mitsubishi. That compares with around 14 minutes for today's fastest 4X drives and almost an hour for a first-generation drive.

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GD library is now bundled with the distribution and it is recommended to always use the bundled version
vpopmail and cybermut extensions are moved to PECL
several deprecated extensions (aspell, ccvs, cybercash, icap) and SAPIs (fastcgi, fhttpd) are removed
speed improvements in a variety of string functions
Apache2 filter is improved, but is still considered experimental (use with PHP in prefork and not worker (thread) model since many extensions based on external libraries are not thread safe)
various security fixes (imap, mysql, mcrypt, file upload, gd, etc)
new SAPI for embedding PHP in other applications (experimental)
much better test suite
significant improvements in dba, gd, pcntl, sybase, and xslt extensions
debug_backtrace() should help with debugging
error messages now contain URLs linking to pages describing the error or function in question
Zend Engine has some fixes and minor performance enhancements
and TONS of other fixes, updates, new functions, etc

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Axis Communications, a global leader in network technology, announced today the availability of the AXIS ETRAX 100LX MCM 2+8, a new generation system-on-a-chip that integrates 2MB Flash, 8MB SDRAM and an Ethernet transceiver into a single chip with a 27mm x 27mm footprint. The chip, which is designed for networked devices such as wireless access points, digital video recorders and access control and security systems, enables developers to reduce costs in both the design and production cycles.
By integrating the most common components used in a standard ETRAX-based hardware design, nearly all of the mandatory components for building a networked device are included in an extremely small chip. The integrated approach makes the ETRAX 100LX MCM a competitive choice for developers needing to improve efficiency in the development process. With the most time-consuming components already integrated into the chip, the ETRAX 100LX MCM enables developers to shorten the time to market and focus on product development.

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China sentenced two Beijing boys to life in prison in August for starting the city's worst fire in 50 years. Police said the boys were angry because cafe staff would not let them surf there.

Web users at the Lanjisu (Blue Hyperspeed) cafe were trapped inside the blazing den because its door was locked and windows blocked by iron bars. A few customers escaped by squeezing through a bathroom window.

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The Raleigh, N.C., company last week reported net income of $305,000 for the quarter ended Nov. 30, up from a loss of $15.1 million in the same quarter last year. Red Hat also reported a 21 percent rise in revenue, to $24.3 million, in the quarter.

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"If you read the listings, you're hip to pop culture," said Lycos Top 50 author Aaron Schatz, who claims that online search terms reveal fashions and fads long before they're apparent in the offline world.

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AOL announced plans along those lines last month, falling in behind Yahoo and MSN. And analysts believe such partnerships are likely to take off next year, fueling growth in an industry that has faced high costs for both providers and consumers.

"I think 2003 has to be the year that a large portion of the transition to getting more broadband access for Internet services comes forward," said David Joyce, an analyst at Guzman & Company.

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"I'm surprised Microsoft has let Adobe own this space as long as they have," said Paul DeGroot, lead analyst for research firm Directions on Microsoft. "Something like 80 percent of the world's business documents are created in Microsoft's .doc format. But when people need to exchange documents, there's no compact, easy-to-download, secure way to exchange them and preserve all the fonts and formatting and layout. The requirement for this kind of format was obvious to Adobe 10 years ago, and they capitalized on it."

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This decision is a huge victory for consumers who will have the best, latest Java technology on their PCs, and it is a victory for software developers who will write applications to run on those PCs," Sun said in a statement. "The decision helps ensure that current, compatible Java technology will be included on every consumer desktop and put an end to Microsoft's practice of fragmenting the Java platform."

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In 2001, Intel filed suit against Via in several countries, including the United States and England, saying that the company's Apollo P4X266 chip set violated Intel patents.

In August 2001, Intel reportedly warned computer makers to steer clear of the new chip set, saying that they risked being entangled in costly legal battles. Via's chip set was the first to support Intel's Pentium 4 chip, but Intel claimed that Via, of Taipei, Taiwan, was not licensed to sell technology compatible with Pentium 4.

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That number--an increase of about 40 percent from the same period last year--comes from shopping comparison site BizRate, which surveys consumers as they finish making purchases. BizRate has about 2,000 stores in its database.

The figures arrive amid a discouraging season for retail in general. Major retailers including Wal-Mart, Federated Department Stores and Kmart all noted that sales for the holiday season would be at the low end of their forecasts, or miss them altogether.

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But a relatively new feature may make it harder for people to avoid these windows. Using a technique called the "kick through," advertisers can direct a person to another Web site if they simply move their cursor across the pop-up ad--no clicking is necessary.

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The technology works by using a different way of keeping track of descriptive information--"metadata" such as physical locations, file sizes or access permissions--that accompanies the actual content within the files. Where most storage systems include this metadata in the storage system itself, Storage Tank spreads the information across a group of metadata servers, lower-end dual-processor Intel servers running Linux.