Saturday, March 17, 2001

XFree86 4.0.3 Released -- 5:11 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

LinuxGames is reporting that XFree86 4.0.3 has been released. XFree86 is a open-source version of the X windowing system for x86 machines. You can check out the release notes and the README for the new version. Only the diffs from 4.0.2 are up now. Expect the full source and binaries to be available soon. Be forewarned, the FTP is already getting pummeled.

BattleCruiser Millenium Demo/Beta -- 2:26 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

DemoNews has a beta demo of BattleCruiser Millenium, Derek Smart's brain-child. The "lite" version is 91.8M, the complete version is 169.5M. Ouch! Mind you, this is the first of six planned episode releases. While your waiting, you can read the readme page. I'm going to download this bad-boy to see if it's really everything it is cracked up to be. Thanks Blue (You can tell I'm a parent. The first time I typed the link I typed "bluesclues.com".)

New NVIDIA Linux Drivers (Sort Of) -- 9:22 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

NVIDIA has released 0.9-769 Linux XFree86 4.x drivers. The only difference between these drivers and 0.9-767 are that the correct version of the README is included. If you already have 0.9-767, you can get the correct README here.

Friday, March 16, 2001

Park Wars -- 6:49 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

It's the Phantom Menace! It's South Park! It's both! Check out Park Wars, a movie using South Park characters in the Phantom Menace. It even has George Lucas' blessing! Thanks Slashdot.

RAMBUS: This Time for Sure -- 6:43 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Now it's definite. The judge in the RAMBUS v. Infineon lawsuit has limited the scope of RAMBUS' patents. Here's a snip:

A judge has limited the scope of Rambus Inc.'s patents for the forthcoming court case against Infineon Technologies AG as a result of a series of rulings at a hearing held in Richmond, Va., last Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Robert Payne followed up with a memorandum opinion on Thursday.

In the memorandum opinion, the judge decided to go with a narrower interpretation of the patents than Rambus' (nasdaq: RMBS) attorneys had sought.

This is a significant legal blow for RAMBUS. If Infineon can win this legal struggle, it opens the door for Micron and Hyundai to be similarly successful. According to this Reuters report:

The bulk of Rambus's revenues are composed of royalty payments from the chipmakers who use its synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) and Rambus dynamic random access memory (RDRAM) technology.

If that is true, losing the lawsuits will be catastrophic. If this results in RAMBUS' burial, I will be the first one there with a shovel. As it is, their stock took another beating on the NASDAQ today, closing 34% lower at 15 13/16 off 8 9/32. Keep in mind that their 52 week high is 135. Can you say, "3dfx"?

RAMBUS Ruling Revisited -- 1:22 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Motley Fool (free registration required) reports that yesterday's article in the Electronic News (story) was not accurate. No preliminary ruling was made in the RAMBUS case, although one is expected. The false news caused RAMBUS' stock to drop 33% yesterday, slicing $1 billion in market cap.The EN article has been updated to reflect this news.

RAMBUS' stock is off another 4 11/16 today, another 20% drop. I'm not shedding too many tears over this, but I would rather have the company fail due to its anticompetitive business practices rather than inaccurate news reports.

Past Two Days' News

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