Scott M. Fulton

As expected, the official entry of Intel's new Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors into the "in stock" category from major retailers is pushing street prices for dual-core Pentium D 900 series processors down, over 10% since last Tuesday and down about 40% since 18 July, according to the latest figures from PriceGrabber.

At about 12:15 pm Eastern time this afternoon, Intel released official news to North American sources that it is releasing a total of ten new Core Microarchitecture processors this morning, in an event now scheduled for 11:30 am Pacific Time (2:30 pm ET).

Reuters this morning made public the news that is still hours away from being made official: Intel will officially unveil its Conroe and Merom processor architectures into its Core 2 Duo series, in a gala announcement slated for 11:30 Pacific Time this morning.

In a baffling display of crossed wires, the Private Folder utility which Microsoft said late last Friday would be discontinued, after admins complained about its inability to be managed by group policy, actually remains available for download, though links to the file have evidently been removed. Was there a plan in mind when Microsoft released the software?

In a clarification this morning, Dell Computer communications specialist Liam Nguyen told TG Daily that the company's revised XPS 700, which will be featured with Intel's Core 2 Extreme processor on the day Intel makes its formal announcement, will not be available pre-overclocked by the factory after all.

Yes, AMD does intend to drop its prices for Athlon 64 processors, at or about the same time Intel announces its Conroe processor availability later this month. TG Daily re-confirmed the news with AMD spokesperson Damon Muzny. Now that Intel may have at least evened the stakes in the performance-per-watt battle, AMD's plan appears to be to shift the focus to performance-per- dollar.

On the day Intel announces Conroe - which is expected within days - Dell Computer will upgrade its top-of-the-line XPS 700 desktop computer model to offer not only an overclocked Core 2 Extreme CPU, but also the option of two Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX cards in SLI mode. This news comes straight from Chairman Michael Dell, who posed for pictures beside his team's new baby.

Web analytics firm OneStat published figures last Sunday claiming the combined usage share of Firefox and Mozilla browsers has climbed to nearly 13% worldwide, and almost 16% in the US.

Nokia announced this morning it has reached an agreement with the New York City Parks and Recreation Dept. to become a "primary provider" of mobile multimedia services for 18 locations throughout ten public parks.

If there is a Michael Jordan in the realm of supercomputers, then Lawrence Livermore Labs' IBM-powered BlueGene/L may be it. For the third consecutive time, it's wrested the #1 spot among the top performing supercompupters in the world, this time by an almost embarrassingly huge margin.

As part of its late push into the VoIP communications market, Microsoft yesterday unveiled a new device that may at least make prospective customers take notice: It's a 360-degree videoconferencing camera, that could enable remote participants to see directed sessions, where the camera follows the active speaker around the table. But behind that camera is Live Identity, and Office Communicator, and Active Directory...and is everyone really ready for this?

Windows Vista will launch together with a new version of Microsoft Office - which will bring a dramatic interface redesign and change the way we use the software on a day-to-day basis. Join us on a tour through some of the new features in Office 2007.

At a demonstration of new features in the latest beta edition of Windows Server "Longhorn", Microsoft revealed that the new version of Terminal Services will enable client computers to run full applications such as Word with distributed processing. Just the container application - the window - runs on the client, while the engine of the application runs through the server.

In a session Wednesday afternoon on ten classes of benefits administrators will see from Windows Server "Longhorn," Microsoft technical program manager Ward Ralston revealed that one installation option for Longhorn, entitled Server Core , will enable a command line-driven OS with just the basic services to be installed within a 500 MB footprint.

Microsoft provided some more details on what may become one of Vista's most popular features - the performance accelerator "SuperFetch." According to first public demonstrations, the technologies can boost application startup times by up to 200% - simply by using Flash memory. Extra: See the demonstration in our Image Gallery

Microsoft today demonstrated the first release candidate of the Windows command line shell now called PowerShell. Software architect Jeffrey Snover revealed that it is a design goal for PowerShell to run as the command provider for all Windows administrator tools, including Microsoft Management Console.

Microsoft's giving it a try just one more time, this time with a lot of effort, enthusiasm, and, of course, nomenclature: It's making another try at selling the idea of letting enterprises extend the functionality of their Microsoft Office installations for business purposes. Welcome to the "LoBI." Get ready to make your selection.

In perhaps the clearest indication at TechEd 2006 that everything old is new again, yesterday, Microsoft demonstrated a new set of APIs that will be compatible with the company's Windows Live Messenger program, that will enable automated services to communicate to users using natural language.

Windows' reliability has improved dramatically with Windows XP and will take another step forward with its successor: Among the new features of Windows Vista is the Restart Manager, which will enable applications to be restored to their last viable state after shutdown - not only after a regular log off, but also following a system crash.

At an early morning session of TechEd 2006, representatives of the Windows Live development team showed off a new set of open developers' tools and SDKs available now from Microsoft's new Web developers' site, unveiled last Friday. Among the features shown is the ability for Web developers to quickly create "mashups" - aggregate, composite Web sites with very little development effort.