2 January
2003
By:
Agitator!!
February
In
February, Russian scientists reported they might have created
the next big thing in computer memory: flexible, transparent
sheets of carbon, the first pure nonmetallic
magnets to work at room temperature. Microsoft claimed
to stop
working on new code to fix bugs in existing code. ATI
introduced the RADEON 8500LE graphics card. It was also the
month that saw the introduction of ECS'
Desknote series desktop replacement PC's. 3Dlabs assaulted
the workstation market with the Wildcat
III 6210 and Wildcat III 6110 graphics accelerators.
A
company called Racksaver
built a 264 AMD Athlon MP processor-based supercomputer. Western
Digital announced their Caviar 120 GB Special Edition hard
drive that used a massive 8 MB buffer. The PCI-X 2.0 draft
specification to increase the I/O standard's speed to 533-megatransfers
a second was introduced. Sigma
announced the first MPEG-4 Decoder Card for PC Use.
NVIDIA
made gamers' pockets a little lighter with the launch of their
GeForce4 Ti, MX and GeForce4 440 Go lines of graphic accelerators.
VIA announced the P4PA
mainboard, bringing Ultra ATA/133 and USB 2.0 support
to the Pentium 4 platform. IBM Research demonstrated the 9-ounce
prototype "MetaPad"
Portable Computer.
STMicroelectronics
announced their intention to withdraw from the PC graphics
market. Confimax
offered the promise of Universal Certified Email Service.
It was revealed that teleporting
objects could become a real possibility. Promise Technology
announced their new FastTrak
TX2000 ATA RAID card for Ultra ATA/133 drives. Best Buy
angered consumers by advertising GeForce4 Ti 4600's for $129.99
and then didn't honor the price. ActualDepth LCD monitors
from Deep
Video Imaging claimed to provide the user with a "literal"
depth viewing experience.
Intel
introduced a new family of microprocessors, XScale,
specifically designed to bring high performance and long battery
life to wireless communications devices. Apple added MPEG-4
support to their flagship app, QuickTime.
Mad Onion updated their popular benchmarking program, 3D
Mark 2001, with a Second Edition. Microvision
demonstrated an 800 x 600 pixel full-color display that had
just four active components and can be integrated into PDA's
or cellphones.
LSI
Logic unveiled their Ultra
320 SCSI product family. A Lego
robot was created to solve Rubic's Cube. Scientists developed
a way to make bar codes so small they can tag
individual molecules. America Online moved into the wireless
arena while Microsoft and Intel announced a Wireless
Development Initiative, where the companies will be collaborating
on reference designs for Microsoft's Windows Powered Pocket
PC and Smart Phone devices using the Intel Personal Internet
Client Architecture. The large capacity Optical Disc Video
Recording Format known as 'Blu-ray Disc' was established.
Sparking
adolescent fantasies, the FAA took the idea of x-ray specs
a bit further by considering a security scanner that can see
through clothes. NVIDIA
introduced the Quadro4
family of professional graphics solutions. Adding more
power to their lineup, VIA announced the KT333
chipset. Scientists at Bell
Labs built the world's first semiconductor laser that
emits light continuously and reliably over a broad spectrum
of infrared wavelengths. TransGaming's
WineX portability technology allowed a DirectX 8-based game
title, Max Payne, to operate on the Linux platform.
AMD disclosed details of the AMD-8000 series of chipsets to
support their upcoming "Hammer" processors and then
demonstrated the processors running both a 64-bit Linux and
32-bit Microsoft Windows OS. Not to be outdone, during the
Intel Developer Forum (IDF), Intel gave a sneak preview of
its future desktop microprocessor lines, including a 4-GHz
chip as well as a 90-nm (0.090-micron) product called "Prescott."
Bose's website offered a new interactive feature, SoundAdvisor,
that provided instant expert advice in choosing home entertainment
equipment on-line. Seemed that Serial ATA was all the rage
at the Intel Developer Forum while people speculated on the
impact DDR333
and DDR400 would play. Not to be left out, Rambus
demonstrated RIMM 4200 modules. Adobe announced Photoshop
7.0.
As if we didn't have enough problems listening to each other,
now researchers developed technology that can project a beam
of sound so narrow that only one
person can hear it. Hoping to gain a foothold in the mobile
market, Trident announced their new low-power, 200 MHz CyberBLADE
XP2 for mainstream and thin/light Notebooks.
NVIDIA introduced a new software-based DVD player/decoder,
NVDVD, and Alias/Wavefront attempted to make 3D Computer Graphics
available to all by offering the "Personal
Learning Edition" of their popular Maya software. IBM
research was in full swing in 2002. One of the first announcements
of this year was the world's fastest semiconductor circuit
- operating at speeds of more than 110 GigaHertz (GHz).
Microsoft
announced that Windows-based servers would be jumping on the
Hyper-Threading bandwagon. eMagin
announced that its OLED microdisplay technology had been selected
for the Version 1.0 Helmet Mounted Displays (HMDs) for the
US Army's Land Warrior Program. And finally, in a possible
case of jumping ship before it sinks, Intel threw their weight
behind DDR instead RDRAM.
