Friday Tech News

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The chip will also incorporate a number of security features. Like many of the latest Intel and AMD processors, the C7 will come with an NX bit, which allows the processor to block many buffer overflow attacks. Via also included circuits that make it easier to encrypt documents. Another feature allows a user to encrypt a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call made through a notebook. The software to enable these options will come out later.

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The prototype, called the Cell Processor Based Blade Server, measured approximately 23 x 43 cm. Each board featured two Cell processors, two 512 Mb XDR DRAM chips and two South Bridge LSIs. The Cell processors were demonstrated running at 2.4-2.8 GHz. "We are driving the Cell processors at higher rates in the laboratory," said the engineer. "If operated at 3 GHz, Cell's theoretical performance reaches about 200 GFLOPS, which works out to about 400 GFLOPS per board," he added. IBM plans to release a rack product capable of storing seven of these boards.

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In the VAB, it will be mated with a new fuel tank that has a heater designed to prevent ice from forming. Ice and insulating foam, like the piece that caused a deadly breach in Columbia's wing, are the most common sources of debris from the tank during launch.

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"The original plan for Longhorn was to build lots of components on top of the next version of the .Net Framework," according to one of our developer sources, who requested anonymity. "But given how late [.Net Framework 2.0] is, and how new it would be, [Microsoft chairman] Bill Gates realized it would be foolish to build important pieces of Longhorn on top of .Net."