News about what is happening in technology today!

C|Net is running a story that Intel is going back to software x86 emulation on Itanium in order to reclaim chip real estate. (room for another 9MB of cache?) One notable quote about x86 emulation: ‘Basically, no one ever used hardware-based IA-32 execution, so better to use the silicon for something else,’ said Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff. ‘Of course, basically no one uses software-based emulation either, but at least that doesn’t cost chip real estate.’

According to the San Jose Mercury News, The Bush administration wants access to Google’s huge database of search queries submitted by users to track how often pornography is returned in results. This information would be used for Bush’s appeal of the 2004 COPA law, targeted to prevent access to pornography by children. The law was struck down because it would have restricted adults access to legal pornography. Google is promising to fight the release of this information.” From the article: “The Supreme Court invited the government to either come up with a less drastic version of the law or go to trial to prove that the statute does not violate the First Amendment and is the only viable way to combat child porn. As a result, government lawyers said in court papers they are developing a defense of the 1998 law based on the argument that it is far more effective than software filters in protecting children from porn.

The infamous and controversial domain Sex.com has officially been sold to Boston-based Escom LLC for a reported $14 million. Sex.com owner Gary Kremen was unavailable for comment, but a source from Kremen’s company, Grant Media, told XBiz that sales for the famous domain name will still be handled through Grant Media’s San Francisco offices. While other terms of the acquisition remain unknown, XBiz was able to locate information on the deal through a company called InternetRealEstate.com, which shares office space in Boston with Domain Name Acquisition Group (DNAG), a company that was involved in a lawsuit surrounding the Sex.com domain in September.

The number of RFID tags produced worldwide is expected to increase more than 25 fold between 2005 and 2010, reaching 33 billion, according to market research company In-Stat. Total production of RFID tags in 2005 reached more than 1.3 billion, according to a recent report. RFID production will vary widely by industry segment for several years — for example, RFID has been used in automotive keys since 1991, with 150 million units now in use, a quantity that greatly exceeded other segments until recently, according to In-Stat. “By far the biggest RFID segment in coming years will be supply chain management,” said Allen Nogee, In-Stat analyst, in a statement. “This segment will account for the largest number of tags/labels from 2005 through 2010.” RFID has obvious privacy flaws, why is the world pointed in the direction of RFID?

Oh, no. There goes Tokyo my TiVo - hey, hey Godzilla! The dudes from Monster PVR, creators of the Medusa and the Hydra have completed their third beast. This one has 11 tuners—it can record 4 high definition and 7 standard programs at the same time. It’s also got a DVD±R/RW drive and an LCD window (courtesy of its Silverstone LC16M case). Six Seagate Barracuda hard drives make it breathe fire, a rather complex arrangement of fans keeps it cool. The Intel Pentium D 840 “Extreme Edition” Processor was chosen for the brain, and they gave it a Coolermaster Hyper 48 pure copper heat sink to make the thing run a bit more quietly. Beyond TV 4 provides the functionality and interface. Total cost to build: $4,284.90. A pittance, my friend, in exchange for having the baddest PVR in the ‘hood.

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