All hail Florian Mueller, oh heck iSuppli and Apple

Dear Mr. Magee,

It fills my heart with immense joy to read and respond to your news story dated 22.09.05 on Mr. Florian Mueller's Nomination for EV50 Europeans of the Year.

We are living in the times, wherein even a large section of 'awakened' masses, are yet to get sensitized to Mr. Mueller's ideas and his 'NoSoffwarePatents.com' mission. Times will definitely come when each individual and corporate engaged in Software (and every Creative Endevour) will deeply admire the efforts of Mr. Mueller.

Being a Lawyer and resident of Bangalore-India (termed as Silicon Valley of East), I have had a good opportunity of witnessing the Software Industry and all related developments with proximity. India, being hyped as the Software Hub of Tomorrow, is heavily losing out to the Patent Mafia, which has gripped the creative world like an octopus.

Recently, the votaries and campaigners of Pro-Patents, spending Billions for their selfish interests, never bothered to attend a meeting convened by Chief Minister of our State for Flood Relief activities in Bangalore. Not even a penny was contributed for the Flood Relief by the Lobby, which spends Billion ‘convincing' Legislators for thrusting a Pro Patent Legislation, on us. If this is their concern for people reeling under Floods, how can we expect these them to rescue us from Floodgate of Patents endangering creative domains?

Amidst these dark realities Mr. Mueller stands out as a symbol of conscience keeping and right thinking and economic democracy, which are phenomenal contributions of Western World to India and Third World. His mission is more pertinent for establishing true democratic spirit and rescuing the world from economic tyranny, being unleashed in the name of 'Patents'!

India and many countries in the east are blindly yielding to the Pro Patent Lobby and are passing legislations, which are highly detrimental to the democratic spirit of the Constitutions they are adopted. Let this nomination act as an eye opener for all Legislators and Policy Makers across the World and touch their conscience.

I sincerely greet you and your inspiring publication "The Inquirer" for having covered a most meaningful News Story on this remarkable man and moment. All right thinking people owe their indebtedness to your efforts.

Thanks & Regards

Shridhar Prabhu
BANGALORE INDIA

US inventor loses out to Olde English law

Dear Nick,

First, I really do appreciate the information the Inquirer provides and this story in particular. However, I have just read opinion of the US Appellate Court which was responsible for decision leading to this story.

I find that your report is extremely slanted and grossly misrepresents the facts of the matter (of course, this works to my benefit so I am not really complaining). In particular, the Court order that "French's" case against Lucent be reinstated. That means they one and Lucent lost this round, you report makes that fact appear backwards.

Next, the Court does cite some "Olde English" law but a number of American cases. Furthermore, this ruling certainly does give defense contractors anymore ability to shaft people than they already have. Specifically, implication of the "state secrets privilege" here required significant invention of the US government.

Moreover, it should be noted that "French" had the ability to file a claim direclty against the US government for theft of his ideas in the US Court of Federal Claims, but did not. Finally, the one of three Judges on this Appellate Court even filed a dissenting opinion emphasizing the need for cases like to be resolved despite the "state secrets" issue.

In short, what this story really should be about is attorneys getting paid to obfuscate and deter justice, instead of simple providing fair compensation to an injured party.

Cheers,
John Anderson

Firm takes iPod Nano apart, discovers the truth

iSuppli is so off the mark, it's really unprofessional. The 2 gig iPod nano does not use Samsung memory as stated by iSuppli

Quote "iSuppli' s teardown revealed that the 2Gbyte nano employs two separate NAND flash parts, each with a 1Gbit by 8 configuration. Due to a substantial discount from Samsung, the two parts together are priced at only $54, iSuppli estimates."

The nano uses 2 ” Toshiba 1GB, model number TH58NVG3D4BTG00” memory. According to Ars Technica that demolished the 2 gig ipod nano.

Link.

Only the 4 gig nano uses Samsung memory.

I do not know the cost of the Samsung memory, but that is beside the point. If iSuppli wants to compare how much the nano costs to make..it's needs to use the correct supplier to determine the actual cost. I did not hear about a price break from Toshiba.

Name supplied

More AMD Semprons unlocked for 64 bits

While surely AMD has enabled 754-pin Semprons to run 64-bit software, I was told directly by AMD support (see below) that this is supported only on revision E6 (suffix BX, or BXBOX for the PIB variety), not E3 and D0 (suffix BO and BA, BOBOX and BABOX for the PIB variety).

I believe that ALL genuine Sempron PIB with the box marked "64 bits" are BXBOX, and contain a BX-suffix processor. I bought two this month. Except for lemons, the channel now is full of these.

I challenge you to obtain an AMD statement that AMD64 is supported on some Sempron revision E3 or D0 (suffix BO or BA, BOBOX or BABOX for the PIB variety).

My best understanding on suffixes for 754-pin Semprons found in the channels right now BX => revision E6, 90nm, SSE3 and 64-bit instructions BO => revision E3, 90nm, SSE3 but no official support for 64-bit instructions [*] BA => revision D0, 90nm, neither SSE3 nor 64-bit instructions AX => revision CG, 130nm, neither SSE3 nor 64-bit instructions [*] I have seen one report that Windows64 was booted on one, but that part was an engineering sample, maybe with multiplier unlocked.

Among a variety of sources: http://www.geocities.jp/atcomparts/cpudesktop1.html search SDA3100AIO3BX

and the following exchange with AMD support:

Does the SDA2800AIO3BO (stepping E3) support Amd64 extensions ? Is a retail box SDA2800BOBOX marked for Amd64 support ? The answer is YES to both questions on SDA2800AIO3BX / SDA2800BXBOX (stepping E6)

Dear Sir

Only the BXBOX (Revision E6) will support 64-bit extension, the revision E3 will only support 32-bit. The 64-bit enabled models can be found on this page.

http://www.amd.com/gb-uk/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_609,00.html

Should there be any further Questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

Regards

[Name elided, Ed.]
AMD TSC Engineer

Infocard is no Passport clone

Infocard appeared (from the one talk I went to at the PDC) to be an interoperability standard + windows implementation - Microsoft is into those these days, for example with Indigo. If this is really the case, it seems kind of cool to me, because developers would be able to provide adapters for their back ends that would work with what will be a fait accompli user interface on the most common operating systems in the world.

While there are downsides, the advantage of Microsoft (or Sun, or Bjarne Stroustrup) defining a defacto standard is that it's much faster, and you don't end up with the political situations such as with the next generation dvd standard. If microsoft deploys infocard, identity providers and consumers will know exactly what standard to write to.

James Blasius

INQUIRER invents new numbering scheme

I am one of your geeky readers and your binary representation was incorrect.

Try 10110011110010

Jon

The geeky guy who letterised you calculated his binarised produce of calculation wrong, the binary number he gave you came to only 11506 in Decimal, the number you supplied the world was correct, and The Inquirer is always correct...POWER TO THE INQ'!!!

Max, DPC

Steve Jobs orders fatwah on record companies

Nick,

Just wanted to drop you a note to thank you for the *perfect* tone of your piece on Steve Jobs and record companies. The blend of cynicism, hypocrisy, with a dash of pomposity made my day.

Tell your boss I say you get a raise!

Thanks!
Bill Meade

[No way, San Jose. Ed.]

We need XDR for the PC

The ps3 has 256mb of xdr ram, but the problem is that where is xdr for the pc?how come we dont have 64bit applications.both the ps3 and xbox 360 have 6 or 7 cores,howcome pc has only dual core?why is the pc behind in technology, and ahead in price?why is there no blu-ray technology for the pc?the xdr ram is soooo much faster than ddr-2, why dont they introduce it to the pc?why is the pc lagging in innovation and technology.

Name supplied

Wikipedia attacked by Nazis

As a Wikipedia administrator, I can assure you that we are more or less constantly targeted by vandals with a cause. This is not the second time it has happened. It's not even the second time we've had Nazi vandals. Nor the second sustained attack - you should have seen our Bush and Kerry articles in November.

Vandalism is a constant fact of life at Wikipedia. Studies, however, have shown that vandalism also lasts about five minutes. So on the whole, I'm not too worried. Yes, high profile articles are targets. They also have a lot more people watching them and reverting them.

Name supplied

Apple-based supercomputer planned

Your sub-title "Reassuringly expensive clusters" is unfair at best and untrue no matter how you look at it. If you have followed previous Xserve clusters that have made headlines, one of the things you would have noted is that you get amazing bang for the buck using the Xserve.

The Virgina Tech "Big Mac" project was at one point ranked number 3 in the world (now 14th) and cost millions of dollars less money than a fair amount of the super computers on the list at the time.

These are regular servers that where not specifically designed for super computing applications. These are servers businesses and schools like the one I work for go out and buy because we can afford them. The one for my department will arrive within two weeks and we won't be using it for super computer applications.

The EU should be jumping for joy that they are not going to use a more expensive proposition.

I do like your reporting, I just want you to be honest in it. Make all the wise cracks you like about Apple, Steve, the Mac, and the iPod you like just do it with your facts straight.

Regards a very loyal reader
Paul C Scott-Schroeder

PS I'll give you one link that if you look close enough will tell a very telling story.

http://www.top500.org/sublist/stats/index.php?list=25&type=procfam&submit=Generate+Table