Flash pricing will only catch up with HDDs in 2016

K..I understand its your job to reprot the new.. But now u are reproting garbage! . Do u really need to insult a company... If anyone u should insult microsoft.. Who are the real Thiefs of this business. Releaseing products before there finished to let us trouble shoot them to save on testing.. releaseing operating systems that are way to expensive for what there good for... and o yeah.. vista sux .. ! All sony has done is released high end products like wega and bravia.. and playstation... U might no agree with some of the other products like betamax.. and umd.. but techni they where better product.. and blueray is way better then hd dvd.. hands down.. So what is your problem with sony.. Why do u like to bash them ... For some reason. u just dont stop.. but u luv microsoft.. I really dont get it.. U guys probibly own crap box 360s ... which is a sad product.. anyway.. Start writing better. u guys are terrible latley.. theres no need for insults really..@!

Pudgie

Subject: UK Government slammed over phoneline scam

Its funny how the Head of Communications forgets to communicate how much it costs to call these numbers from a mobile phone. Why doesn't he do this? Afterall there are only approx 5 mobile phone companies in this country. Could you ask him to do this based upon their average tariffs and get him to communicate it back to you for us to see?

And...more whinging,

1) - Young adults who don't have a landline and use mobile phones to make their calls. These poor, literally, chaps call "low cost" 0870 numbers end up paying a 300% or more than his listed charge of 3p/minute.

2) - 0800 numbers, "freephone", cost 10 pence per minute with Orange Mobile. I'm guessing others charge similar amounts for a "freephone" call. What is he going to communicate to Orange and its customers about that?

3) - When are they going to have call costs displayed on our phones as we are making the call? If they know the price of the call, then they can display it on the phone. I really want this, and I'm sure many businesses and consumers do too. That's the sort of communication we could do with! :-)

FYI - Orange charge approx 1000x more than my regular ISP for getting data. Can he do any communicating to Orange on my behalf and get a reasonable price?

;-)

Endak

Subject: Nvidia price fixing

The key word here is "conspire". Both Nvidia and AMD/ATI have access to profit optimization models in a duopoly and they have all the market data. Profit optimization is legal, in fact required of public corporations. Conspiracy to do so is illegal. You can bet the subject is never mentioned in correspondence, nor conversation between the two companies.

K. Beatty

Subject: Dell in stores

Dell has been selling through retail outlet longer than people know, in NZ they had been selling through a retailer for the about 3-4 yrs ago, they would usually flog one cheap model, this I believe was later switched to Alienware once Dell aquired them, however, I believe (not 100% sure on this) that they stopped selling them after sales weren't that great on Alienware

Parvez

Subject: Dell pulls SIS into cheapo PC deal

You said

> The machine is estimated to consume 65watts per minute.

I think you meant either 65 watts
3900 Joules per minute
1.083 kWhr/minute

as my old physics teacher would say

"UNITS UNITS YOU NIT"

David Shepherd

Subject: AMD's Power Point Launches

Ask yourself this. What constitutes failure, or success, for that mater? Was AMD's 2005-2006 success based on superior design or Intel's failure remain competitive. Look, Intel with all its money, size, and power just got dumb, fat assed lazy. The money kept coming in no mater what they did. Complacency will destroy a company as quickly as an inferior product, maybe more so. Intel engineers and personnel were stuck in status quo so badly, upon its arrival; they called the critically acclaimed and financially successful Centrino, Latrino. (Like the toilet) The Intel good ole boys didn't know what it was to be hungry. How a company deals with success and KNOWS what to do with it is quite another mater.

Ottelini came in, kicked ass, chopped heads, cut out the fat, got rid of the good old boy mentality, and delivered superior product. He was hungry. He got back to basics, ditched the memory, cell phone crap, and God knows what the hell else. He got back to their CORE business. And, he's not done, not by any stretch. Why do you think they called E6XXX series CORE?

Conversely, Intel GAVE AMD a golden opportunity. AMD's time had come; they were at the right place at the right time. Now they were a serious player. Here was their shot. They had plenty of money to REINVEST IN THE COMPANY. Instead, they squandered their success with ideas that were too soon, too costly, and too risky. They overestimated their product and underestimated their adversary. Putting 5.4B focused towards their CORE business, at the time, was essential, if not mandatory. READ: Stay on top! How a company deals with success and KNOWS what to do with it is quite another mater.

Sure, AMD is spinning like mad. They are DEEPLY in debt and reeling from "unacceptable" failure. They are delayed and not meeting expectations on all fronts. They screwed the channel (DELL deal). They screwed their loyal enthusiast base (939). They screwed the analysts, (Oct 06). They are screwing the Investors (2B C. Note). They now, as Digitimes has finally figured out, have been screwing the press, too. No early benchmarks on R600, why? No early benchmarks on Barcelona, why? Why the secrets? Why the spin? Incidentally, if you think, by any stretch, that Barcelona, be it the most revolutionary CPU in twenty years, will be enough to pull them out of this death spiral, you not looking at this with an objective eye. Digitimes has. They are thinking smoke and mirrors. Obviously, they are not going to be a mouth piece and spin doctors for anyone.

You can't blame them either.

SPARKS

Subject: Ultra low latency RAM nothing more than pointless "bling" gimmicks..

Hello there.

I would suggest you take the time to do some benchmarking on those exhorbitantly priced low-latency RAM kits, so that they can be exposed for the tacky gimmicks they are. We are talking about infintesimal performance gains (of the single digit variety), at a price that is manyfold that of equivalent and perfectly qualitative "value" parts by the same manufacturers. Buyers, and especially those not interested in overclocking, would be well advised to spend their money on something more substantial, which would give them tangible performance benefits, such as better graphics cards and processors. "Extremely" low latency RAM installed on stock-speed PCs is the computing equivalent of neon lights under your automobile, or 24k gold-plated high end "monster" cables on your audio system. They will not make it run any faster, nor sound any better, but they will make people who know a thing or two point at your rig and laugh. Don't fall for the hype.

kind regards,
Christos Stamos,

Subject: Halo

Looks like the familiar button glitches from Halo 2 made their way into the Vista release too, out first in Australia this week. Only problem is that today's modern computer mouse has programmable macros to perform the aforementioned button glitches with the push of a single button. The Xbox controller didn't have that nifty little function. Gamers at Bungie.net forums are a little bewildered and upset understandbly. Bungie let cheating run rampant in Halo on the PC, and now this. Both the original Halo for PC and Halo 2 Vista were ported for the PC not by Bungie, but by Gearbox and Hired Gun, respectively. What is that old saying? If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself?

An annoyed gamer

Subject: Wi-Fi on Panorama

Paul: Thanks for the link to the WHO web-page.

Some perspective is clearly needed in all of this and I'm beginning to get annoyed at media hype on things that pose relatively low risk while ignoring higher, but less sexy, risks, such as hearing loss from head-phones with the volume too high, or frying important parts of children by their sitting for long periods with a hot laptop physically on their laps. Rant, rant, rant...

Cliff

Subject: Boggers face sack for bogging

As an interesting side note that I'd like to throw in:

This can be done in the US as well. Through we can claim "freedom of speech" (which I know UK citizens can do as well, though I can't be blamed for not entirely understanding your system of government), the US 1st amendment rights do not apply to private parties like privatly owned corporations unless they are government contractors. Our first amendment right is an agreement between the People and our government (ie, if you let us decide foreign policy, etc. then we agree never to persecute or prosecute you for anything you would like to say). Not between the People and the People. Few in the US even with a high school diploma (which requires a semister of US Government) even realize this.

David

Subject: Nice.

A few months ago I was looking at purchasing a 1505 and it was around $499 with xp or vista. I'm guessing they aren't cutting any deals, regardless of the OS.. rather than cashing in on the break they're getting on the OS.

Typical.

Mataroo

Subject: Dell does wallmart...

Considering the amt of money Dell has been losing since the exploding laptop snafu that was posted err... here, have you guys received death threats yet? I mean from Dell, not the usual other hatemail....

N Lowfoon

Subject: Microsoft Vista fails to set PC market on fire

What do they expect?

I know this has been said before, but apart from the new GUI and some cripling features and poor driver support, Microsoft haven't really done anything different to XP.

I have Vista Ultimate at home (and no I didn't pay £350 for my copy) a generous friend has an MSDN subscription...

Since using it I have to go with the general concensus that vista is:

1) under supported by hardware vendors
2) offers few tangible benefits over XP
3) is basically playing "catch up" with the likes of Apple.

I'm not an apple fan boy. I used to own a mac (not anymore) but I have since used tiger and its just a lovely OS. Its so clean where as vista just seems convoluted.

I think I get what microsoft was trying to do but because it took such a long time to develop they lost sight of what they were intending. Instead they bundled some new mediocre software to boost functionality and features and released an otherwise sub-standard product which I am practically forced to buy if I want to play the next generation of games.

So has vista set the PC market on fire? No! why should it when it doesn't offer any tangible differences over XP? Why go to all the trouble of upgrading to Vista when XP serves just as well? The only real benefit of Vista is its GUI and Direct X10 and unless you develop games for living who needs it?

The only people buying it at the moment are people in the market for a new PC who don't know any better and people who "have to have the latest thing". Microsoft might have a bit of a shock when the sales start slumping in the near future; hang on....its already started.

Spy JB

Subject: HP didn't get fined

Continuing the time-honored tradition of dragging a company through a grueling discovery process, only to end it all by saying "bad boy !" and basically letting them off the hook.

Now, the board is going to turn to its lawyers and draw the heavy conclusion of all this : totally violating privacy and individual rights has cost them : zero. Incentive not to start all over again ? A big frown and a menacing growl.

Gosh, I'll bet HP is totally going to have nightmares about this for months, and will never, ever, ever even _think_ about doing it again.

Nobody wants to risk another frown. Man it is nice to see such discipline in the chaotic world of global economy. This whole thing ratchets up my opinion of corporate responsibility and my faith in the Justice of Man.

Pascal.

Subject: 0870

Parool Patel Head of Communications

says that 0870 numbers won't be regulated because they cost a max of 3p a min

I can't believe he does not know they cost 8p a min (daytime) and 4p evenings.

He must know this?????

James James

Subject: Microsoft makes it hard to downgrade Vista

Bla Ha,

Get a Mac and bootcamp it, thats what I am going to do so I can still have my PC games.

You guys are great, love to read your articles.

Have a great day,

Glenn

Subject: Dell n Walmart

Hi Deskie,

I remember hearing Dell were supposed to be changin their ways, bringing back native support from local countries etc.

in Ireland there are 20 normal english speaking people people left in home support for the whole country.

The rest of the jobs being shipped off to India,its not really changing the model, cheap computers+ little or no profit = more cutbacks

Steve

Subject: Anti-spam measure gets thumbs up

If your local router sniffs e-mail logins and only allows e-mail containing the user who logged in to send e-mail through the router, then there will be no spoofing.

Except that the spammers might create accounts which could be used to authenticate against. And then we would need to refine the system.

Such a system might force the spambots to contact one or more central sites more often and therefore leave more tracks and be more traceable.

Or are we still not trying very hard to stop spam?

Tarjei

Subject: HDD vs SSD

let's add some perspective to the HDD vs SSD debate, because I think it is badly needed

according to my calculations...

* the price per GB of HDDs has being falling at around 33% per year for the last 6 years (last year it was 39%), and stands at 0.208eur/GB for mainstream models right now

* the price per GB of flash memory has being falling at around 57% per year for the last 6 years (last year it was 70%), and stands at 9.5eur/GB for mainstream cards right now

at average rates, price per GB for flash devices will only catch up with HDDs in 2016; at last year's exceptional rates, that would be in 2012

unless flash gets dramatically faster, I'm going to want to have HDDs in my systems for quite some time yet (and I mean DRAMATICALLY, otherwise I will have both HDDs and SSDs)

Samuel

Subject: Windows on CMOS

Dear Mike.

I don´t know nothing about code and programming. But in the god old days (1980) I was burning my own new BIOS to an Chip and plucked it into the MOBO.

Now I read about Vista and Readyboost. Can you explain to my, why Windows can´t be on an Chip? The system can then copy the "system" into RAM and...... (I think Apple OS worked something like that in ancient times).

Allan Olsen

Subject: Can anything stop Google?

** Can anything stop Google? **

Yes Sir! ;)

You can use COPERNIC Agent 6.1x if you want a intelligent result of any search in the web!

Google is not bad but if COPERNIC Agent can search in a same time on over 16 good search engines (without Google) in the web and can filter double answers (and more), than is COPERNIC Agent the better search engine!

If only one search engine like Google brings you a million answers on screen, COPERNIC Agent will see in a second that from that million answers are 990.000 the same or ends with same information on the same server! ;)

That's the difference!

If we would had on earth only white cheeps they would eat only food (Google) for white cheeps, they can't see and feel that free food for black cheeps (over 16 also big search engine in the net) could bring more real information and more colour to you!

Best regards! from a black cheep! :)

Frank-J.Bebber

Subject: China syndrome

"The EC280 is one-eighth the size of a regular ATX chassis. The chipset is paired with an Intel Celeron M 205 FSB400MHz processor and DDR 512/256 memory. The machine is estimated to consume 65watts per minute."

It is left as an exercise for the reader to calculate how long it takes for this device to achieve meltdown. Watts are joules per second.

Jim Price