British ISP Telewest is cutting off Internet access to customers who have refused to patch their computers against the Nimda worm or have left infected PCs running. MobileStar Network also laid off 88 workers, and hired the Diablo Management Group to "oversee an orderly sale of the assets," according to sources. the leading provider of broadband Internet access, with nearly 4 million customers, recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and negotiated a deal to sell its high-speed network to AT&T for $307 million in cash.Ī wireless Internet service provider for dozens of hotels and hundreds of Starbucks outlets has begun shutting down portions of its network. Internet service providers are fighting for their very survival.įinancially troubled broadband provider stopped accepting new subscribers, citing the bankrupt company's need to conserve cash. The chip, which will come out next year, also contains integrated functions for performing data encryption and voice recognition. The PowerPC 405LP will contain circuitry that will turn sections of the processor off and on as needed.Ĭombined with existing power-management features such as silicon-on-insulator technology and copper wiring, the new on-off features could lead to a chip that uses one-tenth as much power as predecessors. In that same power-saving vein, IBM is coming out with a new line of PowerPC chips that will consume less power by shutting down parts of the chip that aren't in use. The packaging will essentially channel all that traffic through an extremely thin web of interconnections-tiny wires that link chip circuits-surrounding the chip. For instance, five years from now, microprocessors will run at 20GHz they'll need to issue and receive a vast amount of signals and will require a high infusion of electricity. Intel says that the breakthrough will play an essential role in allowing processing power to grow. Intel this week unveiled a new design for the silicon and metal vehicles that connect a microprocessor to the rest of a computer. The new date isn't because of manufacturing problems Intel is trying to avoid potential glitches during the holiday-shopping season.Ĭhip design is also an important element in winning the processor wars. "Northwood," a 2.2GHz Pentium 4 based on the 130-nanometer (0.13-micron) manufacturing process, will come out commercially in the first part of 2002. In related news, sources say Intel won't release another version of the Pentium 4 until early 2002-a boon for AMD. However, the 2GHz Pentium 4 showed higher performance on tests related to 3D graphics, such as some involving the game "Quake 3." But the Athlon XP 1800+ excelled at productivity applications, such as word processing and e-mail. Some testers said the Athlon XP outperformed the 2GHz Pentium 4.
Yet testers are still divided and say performance depends on the application. With the unveiling of its Athlon XP processor for PCs, Advanced Micro Devices boasted that the Athlon XP 1800+ chip outperforms Intel's 2GHz Pentium 4 chip, even though the XP 1800+ runs at 1.53GHz. Chipmakers are pushing processors that are smaller, faster and more technologically sophisticated, heating up a competitive struggle that shows no signs of a clear-cut victor.