Intel

We updated this blog at 6:25 p.m. PST after Microsoft released a statement.

As far back as 2005, Microsoft executives knew that confusing hardware requirements for the Windows Vista Capable program might get them in trouble. But they did it anyway--over the objection of PC makers--at the behest of Intel, according to e-mails released as part of a class-action lawsuit pending against Microsoft.

In early 2006, Intel's Renee James, vice president and general manager of Intel's software and solutions group, was able to prevail on Microsoft's Will Poole to change the proposed requirements for Microsoft'… Read more

There are lots of things I don't understand. They make me crazy. But don't worry, it isn't contagious.

What I don't understand How was Lou Gerstner able to reposition a zillion-year-old company like IBM from big iron to services, while Jerry Yang doesn't even know where to begin reinventing Yahoo!?

Why does my wife clean the house before the cleaning people come?

When you tell telemarketers you're not interested, why do they keep talking until you hang up on them?

Why do criminals go to all the trouble of robbing a bank or smuggling drugs and then get caught with the goods doing something stupid like speeding?

Last week my dog pissed on the couch; the same day the cat threw up in my slippers. Why do bad things happen in groups? Is there some unknown force of attraction between disastrous events? Where are the physicists on this?… Read more

Intel's upcoming low-cost Diamondville notebook processor will break from Intel's multicore strategy of the last few years and be primarily a single-core processor.

In this respect Diamondville is not that different from Celeron, a long-standing design (introduced in 1998) that has been exclusively single-core until very recently. The reason for the single-core strategy is simple: With Diamondville, Intel has a "fanatical focus" on low power and low cost, according to Dean McCarron, founder and principal of Mercury Research. A single core means fewer transistors and lower power consumption.

Diamondville is not Celeron, however. "It's … Read more

After months of deriding rival Advanced Micro Devices' strategy of cramming four cores onto one chip, Intel is set to take that concept a step further.

A leaked presentation authored by Sun has shed some light on Intel's plans for its Dunnington processor, which appears to be a six-core server chip where all six cores are part of a single chip. Intel had previously hinted that Dunnington would have four cores or more, but it hadn't been clear whether the company would reuse its multichip module strategy of cramming several distinct chips into a single package.

Sources familiar … Read more

Why can't we all just get along? Because it doesn't work that way. There are lots of reasons why folks don't get along. There are cultural differences, gender differences, style differences, all kinds of differences. And that's just the beginning.

According to a number of studies, at least 10 percent of the U.S. population has some sort of personality disorder. That includes depression, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality disorder, to name a few. That can't help.

In the workplace, it gets even worse. There are bullies, jerks who want to stab you in the back, and folks you just plain don't like. My personal favorite are people who are passive aggressive--they openly agree to something and then do the opposite.… Read more

Talk--or speculation in this case--is cheap, but it's a starting point. Only Apple knows what form the next MacBook Air will take but big hints are out there already.

Intel's upcoming 45-nanometer Montevina mobile processors are strong candidates for the first refresh of the Air. Currently, the Air uses special 1.6- and 1.8-GHz "Merom" (65-nanometer) processors that use extra-small 22mm sq. packaging (see accompanying graphic) to yield a Thermal Design Power (TDP or thermal envelope) of 20 watts.

This class of small form factor (SFF) processors will also be part of the "Penryn&… Read more

What do you want in a mobile computer?

How much performance do you want to give up for longer battery life? Would you buy a clunky mobile computer that can run anything you throw at it? If you're the envy of the digerati when you walk down the street with your new phone, but you can't use it to make reservations at Nobu, are you still cool?

Chipmakers are struggling with these questions as well as how to adjust their recipes for the future of mobile computing. It's not so much the about chips themselves, but how … Read more

During the back half of the 1990s, I was in charge of corporate marketing at Cyrix, a Texas-based microprocessor company, and at National Semiconductor, the company that bought Cyrix.

Today, I looked at some of the CNET news stories I was quoted in back then. I couldn't believe some of the blustery crap that spewed effortlessly out of my mouth.

Everything we did was the fastest, most powerful, most highly integrated, lowest cost, blah, blah, blah. The processor gods blessed everything we designed. Customers were lining up around the block. Intel was the devil incarnate. Advanced Micro Devices was just a lowly also-ran, doomed to forever live in Intel's shadow.

As the story turns out, Cyrix imploded and National Semiconductor blew I-don't-know-how-many-billion dollars cleaning up the mess. Intel's still the world's largest semiconductor company, and AMD--well, AMD at least survived.… Read more

As expected, Dell is now offering Inspiron notebook PCs with the Intel Core 2 Duo "Penryn" chip as an optional configuration. This is the first time that Dell has included the 45-nanometer processor as an option in the consumer-oriented Inspiron line.

An Inspiron 1720 with a T9300 (2.5GHz, 6MB cache) processor, 17-inch (1440x900) screen, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, 2GB shared dual channel DDR2 memory, and a 250GB SATA hard drive (5400RPM) is priced at $1,299.

An Inspiron 1420 with a T8300 (2.4GHz, 3MB cache) processor, 14.1-inch (1280x900) screen, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, … Read more