What's new in the PC World? Open your eyes!

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): The giant chipmaker Intel Corp. has just released a warning that its earnings may be around 10 percent lower than expected. As if to give another clear example of how interrelated we all are in today's global economy, the news rocked the semiconductor industry and sent high-tech companies' stocks down last Thursday.

But, personally, this is just to be expected in the midst of regional economic woes, which must have changed demands for expensive, high-performance PCs. However, I have full faith that CEO Andy Grove is capable of taking his company safely through the rough waters and it will continue bringing in new advances into the computer technology.

One of the causes of the slowdown, as analysts believe, is the growing popularity of low cost, sub-US$1,000 PCs. I touched on this when I wrote my review of the HP Brio PC. Intel has responded to this trend by preparing a processor for low-cost PCs -- the so-called Basic PCs -- that it calls Celeron. This new processor is expected to be released very soon.

In the meantime, we still can expect more powerful processors to come from Intel. By now, you must have heard about Merced, the first 64-bit processor that Intel is developing with Hewlett- Packard. This monster is expected to be out by the end of this millennium (which is in less than two short years, by the way). In the pipeline, there will be a few other successors of Pentium IIs, and all of them are named according to geographical landmarks in Oregon and other Northwest regions.

Deschutes is the name of the next generation Pentium II that is based on the 0.25 micron manufacturing process. Faster and more energy-efficient, this processor will work with the new 100 MHz bus from Intel and it will also support the next generation SDRAM, and will be released in a couple of months' time.

Deschutes will be followed sometime next year by Katmai and Willamette. Katmai will have enhanced MMX instruction sets and higher clock speeds -- we're talking about 400 MHz to 500 MHz here. Willamette, which is expected to be out by the time Merced ships, will have even higher velocity -- 600 MHz and beyond. Gosh, did I ever tell you that I'm still happily using a 133 MHz Pentium for my work?

From IBM

Big Blue is a fascinating company to me, particularly because it hires many of the best talents in technology, keeps them in labs, and encourages them to produce new technologies. It's fascinating, because, as Hari Sulistyono, president of PT USI Jaya (IBM representative for Indonesia) has told me, worldwide -- and not only at IBM -- only about 15 percent to 20 percent of these new technologies ever gets developed into commercial products.

And the sheer number of innovations that their researchers have churned out is quite breathtaking. In the last five years alone, for instance, IBM has collected 1,724 U.S. patent rights. The second winner, according to a recent Fortune magazine, is Canon from Japan, another fascinating company. Canon has collected 1,378 patents in the last five years.

One of the big things that has come out of IBM's several labs is the copper-based microchip. Copper is a better conduit for electrical current than aluminum, which is currently used for the wiring inside the chip. The company announced last September that its researchers had finally found the required technique to move copper chips into the production line. The scanned picture taken from Think, IBM's internal magazine, shows a 5,000 times enlargement of the real chip. The company expects that this chip will start rolling out of its Burlington chip plant sometime toward the end of this year.

There are many other interesting technologies from IBM. My favorite is the pressure-sensitive keyboard that they have just patented. Have you ever tried a Korg electronic piano? You produce the dynamics in your music by varying the force of your finger tapping, just as you do on the real Steinway & Sons. The Korg -- and other electronic pianos -- will vary the loudness of the sound they produce based on your tapping.

This IBM keyboard works in the same way; the sensor in each key will measure how hard your normal your tapping is, and if you increase the force significantly the keyboard will know that you want to, say, use a different character set or invoke a special function. Neat, isn't it?

Holographic storage is another technology being developed in one of Big Blue's labs. Take out your credit card, look at the hologram from different angles and you'll see different patterns, different pictures. IBM's researchers are trying to apply the same principle in order to make it possible to cram as much data as possible into a small space on the storage media.

From ITU

Did you recently buy a new 56K modem? Was it an x2 or K56Flex? Some Internet service providers support both of these 56K standards. Others may support one but not the other. What if you have to switch provider later? Do you have to have two modems?

Fortunately, the issue has been resolved. The International Telecommunications Union said that a new specification has been set to end the competition between US Robotics and Rockwell. Called V.90, the new standard will enable us to have downstream data flow (from the ISP to our computer) at the speed of up to 56 Kbps, depending on the line quality, of course. The upstream flow (from our computer to the ISP) will have a maximum speed of 33.6 Kbps.

Of course, in order to be able to achieve such a high speed, the connection between the ISP and our PT Telkom should be digital. The only analog segment should be between PT Telkom's central office and our telephone line. If these requirements are not met, a V.90 modem will automatically slow down and operate at the V.34 speed, which is 33.6 Kbps.

Do you need to buy a new modem now? Well, make sure that it already conforms to the new ITU V.90 56K standard. Don't worry. Even when the ITU standard has not been completely ratified, U.S. Robotics -- now owned by 3Com -- already has an ITU 56K modem for you.