Intel subpoenaed by FTC over CPU business practices

Intel subpoenaed by FTC over CPU business practices

Though the US Federal Trade Commission has yet to issue a statement as of 1:30 pm EDT, Intel has acknowledged it has received a subpoena from the FTC, effectively formalizing its inquiry into Intel's US business practices in the CPU market.

AMD pushes USB 3.0

USB will be getting an upgrade in 2009 as we move to the USB 3.0 standard. This will improve the speed up to ten times faster than USB 2.0. That is approximately 4.8 gigabits per second, or about 600 Megabytes per second (USB 2.0 runs up to 480 Mbit/s). It will even surpass current Firewire standards (The Firewire 800 standard can run up to 3.2 Gigabits per second).

Intel has been controlling the specification and so far is not giving the new technology to any competetor. An unofficial AMD source announced they are working on their own USB standard. It will be an "open" specification, but an Nvidia representative says it will also be "productized".

What does this mean? Simply put we might see "Intel USB" and "AMD USB" - and the remote possibility that they won't work with one another. The greatest part about the USB standard was that we could use it on any PC - whether Intel, AMD or other - on an Apple product or any other device that contains the standard.

It's items like this where universal standardization should be implemented. We don't need these standards "segregated but equal". It hurts production - especially for the independent companies that make USB peripherals. Will your Intel USB 3.0 Flash drive work properly on an AMD USB 3.0, or will it corrupt your data?

Opening the USB standard is key if we want to continue using it. No one company should be able to "hoard" the technology. After all, "Open Productization". Is that an Oxymoron, or what?

Source

South Korea fines Intel for anti-competitive behavior

South Korea fines Intel for anti-competitive behavior

Korea's fine against Intel ends a two-year-long investigation by the Korean Fair Trade Commission into allegations of abuse of Intel's dominant position in the CPU market.

Intel unveils new 4 series chipset at Computex

Intel unveils new 4 series chipset at Computex

At the Intel keynote today at Computex, EVP Sean Maloney officially unveiled the new 4 Series chipsets and prognosticated a bright, high definition future delivered via WiMAX.

Europe is not preparing to impose sales limits on Intel

BetaNews has confirmed this morning that a widely disseminated story first published by Financial Times Deutschland, which said the European Commission was preparing to issue sales restrictions on Intel, is false.

The FT story, which appears here in a poor translation from German, stated that the EC was preparing to issue a decision that would force Intel to refrain from giving preferred customers in Europe any kind of discounts. Allegations of Intel playing favorites with certain customers, especially for preferring Intel over AMD, has been central to AMD's worldwide antitrust battle with the market share leader.

Using adjectives he isn't normally known to use, EC spokesperson Jonathan Todd called the latest FTD report "irresponsible journalism," in a statement to the press this afternoon, Brussels time.

In a response to BetaNews' inquiry this morning, Todd reiterated, "There is no preliminary or internal decision on the case, and we have an active, ongoing antitrust investigation."

Intel corporate spokesperson Chuck Mulloy showed BetaNews this morning his initial statement on the matter, which began, "To the best of our knowledge, no decision has been made." Mulloy indicated that Intel's knowledge was apparently vindicated, and added that any and all reports of such an event should be treated as speculation.

To that end, he declined comment on our question regarding whether Intel predicts its market share would remain steady, were the EC to impose such measures.