congress

Samsung Electronics introduced a new ARM-based processor for smartphones at Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona, Spain. The S3C6410 "mobile application processor" includes special hardware accelerators to handle motion video processing and 3D graphics, thereby freeing up the main processor for other tasks and speeding overall performance.

At the heart of the S3C6410 is an ARM1176 processor core that can be clocked up to 667MHz. The chip is made on Samsung's advanced 65-nanometer manufacturing process.

By embedding a hardwired Multi Format Codec on-chip, the S3C6410 can perform video capture in MPEG4/H.263/H.264 formats and … Read more

With this year's presidential race in full swing, it's easy to forget about alleged electronic voting glitches that snarled at least one congressional contest in 2006.

But a report issued by government auditors this week is drawing new attention to what many computer scientists view as the perils of touch-screen machines that don't produce a paper record.

It all goes back to the November 2006 election in Sarasota County, Fla., where more than 18,000 of the county's ballots--or, put another way, 1 in 7 voters--didn't register a pick in the U.S. House of … Read more

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a higher-education funding bill that includes controversial new antipiracy obligations for universities.

The 354-58 vote to approve the College Opportunity and Affordability Act leaves intact an entertainment industry-backed provision, which makes up just a tiny part of a bill that has ballooned to more than 800 pages.

It says higher-education institutions participating in federal financial aid programs "shall" devise plans for "alternative" offerings to unlawful downloading--such as subscription-based services--or "technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity."

Leading university groups, such as the Association of … Read more

The first--and so far, only--Capitol Hill committee to place a hearing about Microsoft's $44.6 billion Yahoo bid on its calendar is now postponing that event.

Just hours after word of the proposed deal emerged last Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee's antitrust task force said it planned to hold a February 8 hearing to examine "The State of Competition on the Internet," including Microsoft's Yahoo plans.

But since then, "scheduling conflicts" have intervened, forcing the panel to cancel the hearing for the moment, a Democratic aide told CNET News.… Read more

Let the telemarketer-free dinner table conversations continue.

Congress on Wednesday gave its final approval to a bill that would prohibit "automatic" removal of phone numbers from the national Do-Not-Call registry, which is designed to allow consumers to opt out of receiving unsolicited sales calls.

The bill, called the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, now goes to the White House for the president's signature.

The latest action is a direct response to concerns from consumer advocates and politicians that under rules established in June 2003 by the Federal Trade Commission, Americans would have been forced to reregister their … Read more

ARM plans to demonstrate prototype phones based on ARM processors and Google's Android operating system next week, possibly paving the way for the chip designer to join Google's Open Handset Alliance.

It won't be the first Android prototype to get a public airing, but this one will come on one of the biggest stages of the year for the mobile-phone industry. An ARM representative distributed invitations Wednesday to come see and play with the Android prototypes next week in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress.

ARM's technology is found at the heart of almost every mobile … Read more

Here we go again.

Not content to be outdone by a rival committee, which promptly announced a February 8 hearing into the antitrust implications of Microsoft's $44.6 billion bid to swallow up Yahoo, another U.S. House of Representatives committee said it is planning to hold a hearing sometime this spring. The subject of the hearing will be the "tough competition and consumer privacy issues that have been and will be raised" by the potential deal. Yahoo, for the record, has not accepted Microsoft's offer.

"The recent announcement by Microsoft demonstrates that consolidation of … Read more

Renewed objections this week from the Bush administration could complicate the passage of a sweeping patent law rewrite backed by seemingly every prominent hardware and software maker on the map.

As the so-called Patent Reform Act of 2007 awaits action in the U.S. Senate, the Bush administration is once again raising alarms about the proposal's effects on mainstream manufacturers and small inventors. (Here's the entire letter (PDF) sent Monday to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), whose panel approved an amended version of the proposal last summer.)

The Bush administration says it doesn't have any … Read more