Mark Hachman

Yamaha Electronics Corp. has bowed before the decline in the CD writer market and will exit the business, company executives confirmed Monday. Citing uncharacteristically rapid price erosions, continuing market difficulties, and the highly volatile competitive environment, Yamaha Electronics Corporation stated that the company is discontinuing its sales and marketing of computer-based CD-RW recorders, effective immediately. […]

ArcSoft officials said they “would look into” choosing another DRM technology after viewing ExtremeTech reader threads decrying the Macrovision SafeCast/C-Dilla software. ExtremeTech reader and forum member “trukablegod” noticed that a free trial demo version of ArcSofts PhotoStudio photo editing application installed the Macrovision SafeCast/C-Dilla software. The software allegedly slowed down “trukablegod”s PC, but also remained […]

Intel will continue to push computing and communications closer together when the Intel Developer Forum kicks off later this month. “It should be a great time,” said Pat Gelsinger, a senior vice-president and chief technology officer for Intel. For the last few years, the IDF conference has stood as a showcase for Intels vision of […]

Dell Computer will begin phasing out the floppy drive as a standard feature on selected Dimension desktops, beginning at the end of this month. Beginning with the Dimension 8250, a high-end PC using Intels 3.06-GHz Pentium 4 processors, Dell will offer customers the option of using a USB memory key instead. Dell tipped its plans […]

Toshiba Corp. said Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics (MKE) has agreed to take on additional hard drive manufacturing duties for Toshiba, in a bid to expand Toshibas share in the mobile hard drive market. Beginning in April, MKE will begin manufacturing 1.8-inch hard drives for Toshiba. In the second half, MKE add 2.5-inch Toshiba drives to its lines. […]

Broadcoms ServerWorks division will ship several Serial ATA components by the end of March, in preparation for integrating them into its chipset line later this year. Although Serial ATA drives are just beginning to roll out, their performance has been impressive. Seagate has unveiled two SATA drives, and chipset support from Intel is expected soon. […]

Intuit has added an uninstaller feature for those users who are worried about the long-term effects of the Macrovision SafeCast/C-Dilla DRM software on their systems. “As of today, were going to give them an uninstaller,” said Scott Gulbransen, director of corporate communications for the company. “We listened to that issue.” “The company is run based […]

SAN JOSE – While King Harald Bluetooth unified much of Scandinavia, the technology named after him still hasnt learned how to play nice. After five years of development, Bluetooth technology providers sought to establish the nascent technologys potential at the Bluetooth Developer Conference here this week. To reach it, the technology will have to learn […]

Speakers here at a Bluetooth conference said developers have an obligation to publicize and simplify the technology further to ensure its success. More work must be done to educate consumers on the advantages of Bluetooth, executives said. Meanwhile, more manufacturers, especially carriers, need to sign on to the wireless technology to enable the wireless personal-area-network […]

On Monday, Seagate Technology introduced its second Serial ATA drive, and added a low-end 40-Gbyte model for value PCs. The Seagate 7200.7 and 7200.7 Plus drives represent Seagates second-generation drive to use the standard Serial ATA interface, which can transfer data up to 150 Mbytes per second. The standard Barracuda 7200.7 offers capacities from 40 […]

Theres nothing more refreshing on a hot summers day than a cool stream of water—and that goes for chips, too. On a balmy day at the companys headquarters in Palo Alto, Hewlett-Packard research engineers disclosed new methods of keeping both semiconductors and datacenters cool. Whats novel is the way they are doing it: adapting an […]

Would you believe, a teaser ad might say, in a microprocessor that will allegedly outperform Intels Itanium? That such a processor was being designed by Russian scientists held over from the Cold War? That the designers hadnt really been heard from since the late 1990s? Well, Elbrus MCST (Moscow Center of Sparc Technology) could still […]