Digital Media World 2001
Digital media World 2001 is Australia's leading exhibition covering the convergent technologies of the Internet, broadcasting and telecommunications in the digital economy. It is the perfect place to learn about the new technologies, new players, new partnerships and new revenue streams. More than just a trade show, Digital Media World 2001 is an all encompassing marketplace providing you with direct access to special effects, editing, animation, multimedia, broadcasting, mobile content, broadband, wireless Internet, mobile commerce and much more. The show is run in conjunction with the Wireless Infocomms Exhibition, Broadcast World Australia 2001 and the Australian Effects and Animation Festival and partnered with Australia's Digital Media World Magazine.
Probester Launched by SolidSpeed
(Newstream) SolidSpeed Networks, Inc., a leader in "edge" distributed computing technology, has launched a revolutionary patent-pending data engine to track website performance called Probester. Probester employs thousands of idle, yet connected PCs to measure the performance of websites from the end users' desktop, the true edge of the Internet. This technology provides the most accurate and direct measurement of site speed and reliability ever. SolidSpeed recently compared Probester performance data with data from Keynote Systems, Inc., a leading performance measurement company that publishes the Keynote Business 40, a performance metric of 40 leading business Web sites. Data gathered by Probester shows that the true overall end-user experience in downloading Keynote Business 40 websites to be over 6 times slower than data measured by Keynote demonstrates. In addition, this disparity rises to over 10 times slower page downloads for Internet shoppers connected via a 56K connection when a comparison is made of individual e-tailers' Web page loads.
Intel Unveils Peer-to-Peer Trusted Library
Intel, seeking to improve its peer-to-peer efforts, unveiled a security software code that other companies can use when developing peer-to-peer applications. The company launched its Peer-to-Peer Trusted Library, which includes full API (application programming interface) documentation and provides support for peer authentication, secure storage, encryption and digital signatures. Intel has made the API freely available to developers through its website. Intel says it released the code to spur innovation in the peer-to-peer security market.
AMD Rolls Out High-Speed Bus Technology
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. officially rolled out its HyperTransport high-speed bus technology at the Taiwan Platform Conference. The company said it has gathered more than 100 companies, including Sun Microsystems, Broadcom, Nvidia and Cisco Systems, to help lay down the infrastructure for the bus' industry acceptance. AMD has been working on HyperTransport, formerly code-named Lightning Data Transport, for more than three years. It is intended as a point-to-point solution that will enable processors in PCs, networking and communications devices to talk with each other 24 times faster than with current technologies. The bus technology will be an integral part of the strategy for AMD's 64-bit MPU, code-named Sledgehammer, which will challenge Intel Corp.'s 64-bit Itanium and successor McKinley processors.
Websites Offer Support for Software Projects
Two software developers are generating a new type of business service for the Web that attempts to solve project management problems via distributed interaction. The recently established companies, ITsquare Inc. and SpeeDev, are moving ahead rapidly with websites that cater to large-scale software development projects. The business-to-business services are based on the realization that software projects are usually derailed not by poor programming but by organizational glitches such as failure to track bugs and a lack of communication between code-writing teams. The Internet might turn out to be the ideal medium for attacking those problems, opening up a new era in highly efficient software production.
Compaq Beefs up Microprocessor for Servers
Compaq Computer Corp. has unveiled a beefed-up version of its Alpha microprocessor for servers and tipped plans to introduce a 1-GHz Alpha later this year. The 833-MHz processor is manufactured by IBM Corp. on a 0.18-micron line, and will be used in Compaq's AlphaServer ES40 systems. Compaq has been shipping those systems to early users for more than a month, but this week marks the first commercial availability of the 64-bit chip. Early users of the ES40 include Celera Genomics Corp., which is using
the server for its human genome-mapping project. Compaq is roughly 18 months late with the new processor, dubbed the EV68, but the market for high-end server microprocessors has been beset by tardiness on many fronts. Intel Corp.'s planned Itanium chip and Sun Microsystems Inc.'s 900-MHz UltraSparc III chip have seen numerous delays, and analysts believe available processors present competitive options.