Arrgh sent us a link to a new Transmeta Patent filed for what they describe as "Method and apparatus for correcting errors in computer systems". That doesn't help much. Now back to trying to figure out why connecting my cable to my VCR makes my whole stereo humm. Why can't audio/video be as easy as Linu- oh, wait...

yuri-g sent us a link to the transcripts of last nights ABCNews Chat with Linus. While he doesn't say what Transmeta does, he talks about the Cult of Linus, Linux on Consumer Electronics, Distributions, and the ever popular LiGnuX debate. Somewhat lengthy, but a good summary, with some new info too.

id writes "JC has some rumours about Transmeta including one that suggests that the chip will be software upgradeable, so new instructions could be added at a later date to keep pace with other vendors " Most of it is stuff we already know, but it notes that the chips will be expensive, even though they will be cheap to produce, as well as talking about it being software upgradable.

K.G. writes "A Russian computer related news agency Computerra said today that Linus Torvalds will move to Moscow, quitting his job in Transmeta to develop a Linux compatible OS intended to run on the E2K processor from Elbrus International. In a russian-language article named "Closer to Dad" Computerra said that the factors that convinced Linus to move to Russia were "more interesting and promising job", closeness to his father who works as a Moscow correspondent for Finnish radio & TV, and a more familiar climate, similar to Linus's homeland Finland (they don't get a lot of snow in LA, do they... ). They also quoted the future boss of Linus, professor Boris Babayan: "The great professional qualities of Torvalds will help create a dependable OS for the E2K processor, fully compatible with Linux, in a tight deadline". "

Flame is an interesting little beast. Some people would argue that it is the thing that makes the internet work- martial law? Mob rule? Others would argue that it is one of the most dangerous things about life online. I'm not (quite) egomaniacal enough to claim that I have a solution to the problem, but I'd like to share my perspective with you a bit. Click below to read it.

Erik has written in with a nice little commentary on the personalities behind the free software movement. Mostly about RMS and Linus, but its worth reading.

Curious writes "The Economist this week talks about the growing use of emulation technology and Transmeta's newest patent involving hardware/software hybrid in multi-host emulation." Whatever they emulate, their employees win Harley's at conferences, so they're doing something right.

jpatters tells us that Micro Processor Report is reporting (via MacInTouch) that a russian company (Elbrus International) claims to have a CPU design that achieves 135 SPECint95 and 350 SPECfp95. This compairs to Merced's scores of 45 and 70 respectively. It is claimed to run in a 0.18 micron process at 1.2Ghz consuming only 35 watts and 126 square millimeters of silicon. It includes a 256 Kbyte of on-chip L2 cache. It should also be both x86 and IA-64 compatible. Elbrus 2000 seems to exist (look at what Shevtsov is working on now), and seems to have had some history. Here is Shevtsov's FPU patent. S : I've tried to verify this story, but can't find the copy of MPR -- anybody else have it? Anyone care to speculate how it was done? Assynchronous logic? 256Kb L2 seems rather low though unless they're using a special point-to-point bus.

Asdren writes "Dvorak supposedly sheds some light on what Linus and Transmeta are up to. Check out his opinion column here" Low power x86 chips. Never heard that before *grin*.

The new EETimes (print edition) hit the canteen tables today, leading with an article about TeraGen's new processor. Like the processor described by Transmeta's patent, this processor is able to emulate multiple instructions sets. But it adds an extra twist: the ability to emulate more than one CPU simultaneously. This allows it to replace a DSP, a CPU and other parallel devices by one chip, making it ideal for embedded applications. Update: 02/02 03:30 by S : More details here.

Petergun sent us another Transmeta story which does not reveal much new, but provides a nice summary of last year's events. Brian Neal appears to believe that 1999 will be Transmeta's year.

peyote wrote in to say Linus has finally released 2.2.0pre1. A good mirror for kernel.org is ftp.tux.org. The file is in the v2.2 directory. See below for Linus's note.

H. Peter Anvin writes "The Linux Kernel Archives Mirror System is now available for use! A number of sites across the world have graciously offered to help distribute the Linux Kernel using a common file structure and site-naming scheme. These sites have agreed to mirror the /pub/linux and /pub/software trees (i.e. the original software distributed from our site) from ftp.kernel.org in its entirety. To get connected to a mirror site near you, connect to: "ftp://ftp.xx.kernel.org/pub/linux" where "xx" is your two-letter country code. Note that not all sites archive both .gz and .bz2 format files, and that currently not all countries have both FTP and HTTP support. For more information, including the list of countries currently supported by the Linux Kernel Archives Mirror System and how to register a mirror, please see that page. In addition, a list of the individual mirror sites should be available online sometime next week. To all the sites that have offered their time, disk space and bandwidth, I want to give a huge "Thank you!", and to everyone else, I hope you will find this service useful."

H. Peter Anvin writes "I would like to set up an "official mirror" system for kernel.org. "Official" means a set of mirrors that are willing to:

1. Have a contact person on file;
2. Allow public access;
3. Update their mirror via rsync or FTP at least daily (privileged access will be provided to participating hosts);
4. Mirror all of /pub/linux and /pub/software (either .gz or .bz2 files may be excluded at your option);
5. Participate in a uniform URL (via roundrobin CNAME DNS) scheme. The exact spec for the uniform URL is not set in stone at this point, but probably will be in the next few days.

If you are interested in participating, please subscribe to the mirrors@linux.kernel.org mailing list; the goal is to have this system operational by the time the 2.2 kernel hits the wire. "

schwantz writes "Head of Transmeta spills a few more nuggets... Sounds like Linus may be writing compilers..." Enough hype! Draw us a diagram already!

Toshiba and Sony will present papers at the ISSCC about what Techweb believes will be the CPU of the next Playstation. Interestingly this design places more processing demands on the CPU, a growing trend throughout the low-cost industry. Cyrix' MediaGX parts reduce cost by providing on-board video and audio, where most of the complexity is put in software, with hardware assist only where it is justified. Transmeta's patent and EPIC similarly reduce hardware complexity by moving it into software.

Here is a summary of the Transmeta patent for those that do not have the time to read it fully. Click below to read more.

heBgB writes "Transmeta Corp, the super-secret technology startup funded by Paul Allen (and now employs Linus Trovald and David "crack.com" Taylor) has been awarded a patent called Memory Controller for a Microprocessor for Detecting a Failure of Speculation on the Physical Nature of a Component being Addressed. It has all kinds of cool buzzwords like "code morphing software", "speculative memory" and the like. Anyone want to speculate? "

barspin writes "Got my December issue of PC Magazine today, and this is what JC Dvorak had to say about Transmeta in his "Inside Track" column: "There's been a buzz in the valley and elsewhere about Transmeta, a start-up that's going to join in the chip fray. It seems that with the help of some old Cyrix honchos, the company is going to make yet another x86 clone. But this one is going to be ultra-low power and designed for modern notebooks. Transmeta sees a huge gap in the market not being addressed by AMD or Intel. Now you know." This manages to shed a little light on what ddt (formerly of crack.com fame) and of course Linus are up to these days. I wonder, though, how verifiable this info is."

Just after I went to bed, another 15 of you wrote in to say like Trey Harrison that Dave Tayor of Crack.com has accepted a job at Transmeta. It's in his plan today "I've just accepted a job with Transmeta. Thanks to all of those who sent me the great job leads."