Computer tech

Relax--these things take time.

That, in brief, was the message of Jeff Ravencraft, president of the USB Implementors Forum, when I asked him why it was taking the third-generation version of Universal Serial Bus so long to arrive. Intel and others have been touting the sequel to USB 2 since 2007.

"People forget that historically, there is no chipset company in the world that integrated USB from the get-go. It didn't happen with USB 1, It didn't happen with USB 2, It didn't happen with USB 3," Ravencraft said. I takes "a minimum of two years if not more" for a company such as Intel to build USB 3 support into its the chipsets that accompany its processors, he said.

During that time, the first companies build special-purposes chips to handle USB communications, devices get their first support, industry groups hold plug-fests to iron out interoperability problems, he said. Now, with that process well under way, USB 3 is headed for the mainstream. … Read more

The Xiph.Org Foundation, creator of the royalty-free Vorbis audio encoding technology made suddenly relevant by Google's WebM project, is nearing completion of a next-generation codec called CELT and has resumed development of one due after that called Ghost.

"Ghost research was postponed until recently to devote more resources to improving video," said Monty Montgomery, who worked on Vorbis and CELT, in a blog post last week. "Ghost development now resumes where it left off in 2007."

Vorbis, CELT (Constrained Energy Lapped Transform), and Ghost all are audio codecs, meaning that they're designed to … Read more

The Khronos Group today released updates to two interfaces designed to make it easier for programmers to tap into the power of computing hardware.

First is OpenSL ES 1.1, an interface for C programmers to use sound hardware on mobile devices. The interface abstracts technologies such as graphic equalizer processing, reverberation or 3D spatial Doppler effects, playback and volume controls, and audio data recording.

The purpose of the interface is to liberate programmers from having to recraft their applications each time a new device arrives with a different, often proprietary interface. Khronos released profiles tailored for phones, music players, … Read more

Those who lived through the days of xD card vs. Memory Stick vs. CompactFlash vs. Secure Digital may think people need a new flash memory card format like we need a hole in our heads. Who, after all, has a burning desire to upgrade the 9-in-1 flash card reader to a 10-in-1 model?

An established industry standards group, JEDEC, has a new format it hopes will catch on, though.

The group already took over standardization of the MultiMediaCard specification that's chiefly relevant today hidden away inaccessibly in its embedded form, EMMC, that's used under the covers of various … Read more

There's plenty of criticism of the U.S. patent system for granting intellectual property protections for ideas that aren't original enough, but that hasn't stopped the corporate patent frenzy.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted 219,614 patents in 2010, a 31 percent increase over 2009, according to statistics from IFI Claims, a division of Fairview Research that tracks patent grants.

As usual, IBM topped the list--this time with 5,896 patents, a 20 percent increase over 2009. Among those, Big Blue pointed to patents for monitoring and reporting earthquakes based on data from computer … Read more

Rockchip, a Chinese chip designer that focuses on processors for Net-connected phones, TVs, and e-book readers, announced a new processor today at CES that supports Google's WebM technology for video streaming.

WebM can be used to encode video with the the open-source and royalty-free VP8 video codec and Vorbis audio codec, and Google hopes it will keep patent encumbrances off the Net. Its primary competitor is the H.264 codec, also known as AVC, whose use requires licensing an expensive set of patents.

Crucial to WebM's success, though, is hardware support that speeds decoding and saves battery power … Read more

DisplayLink announced an $1.99 application today that turns an iPad into a second monitor wirelessly connected to a Windows computer.

The application works with Windows XP, Vista, and 7 and requires an iPad with iOS 3.2 or later, the company said. It's configured with the DisplayLink software that the company offers for its primary line of business, USB-connected display technology.

"The productivity benefits of multiple displays has been proven, so leveraging the idle screen of the iPad while computing is ideal for parking and for running applications like instant messaging, e-mail, social networking, Web browsing, and … Read more

A weakness in copy protection--the antipiracy mechanism at the heart of many a digital distribution system--has reared its head with Apple's brand-new Mac App Store.

The store, launched yesterday, includes digital rights management (DRM) technology designed to ensure that only a program's purchaser is authorized to run the program. But a hack distributed online apparently can be used to get around the system in some situations.

Although several have reported successful use of the hack to circumvent copy protection, it stems from problems in how software developers get their applications to verify permission to run, not from an … Read more

Mobile phone chipmaker Qualcomm has inked a partnership to explore wireless charging technology with Powermat, a specialist in the area.

Wireless charging holds the promise of ridding people of a lot of wires but poses risks that different devices will use incompatible charging methods, so it's no surprise that part of the partnership involves building an industry alliance around the technology.

Qualcomm's current wireless approach, called WiPower and using a method called near-field magnetic resonance technology, is on display at CES this week.

In their deal, the companies agreed to a broad partnership designed to explore the technology … Read more