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  Headlines and summaries from the pages of Electronic Engineering Times . Previous editions are available from the 1994 , 1995 , 1996 , 1997 , and 1998 News Archives.
Thursday, November 28, 1996DTV deal trades certainty for riskThe political compromise hammered out last week on a U.S. digital-TV standard settles the lengthy skirmish between the PC and TV industries over video formats but immediately raised questions among potential players about how the standard will be implemented.Broadcasters place conditions in DTV dealBroadcasters have set a Dec. 31 deadline for regulators to approve a compromise digital-TV transmission standard announced last week (see related story above).Interactive TV tunes in to JavaIn a pacesetting application that could make Java the star of the small screen, Hongkong Telecom is gearing up to deploy Java as the mission-critical program ming language at the heart of its upcoming interactive-television network.MIPS faithful forge onDespite Microsoft Corp.'s decision to pull the plug on Windows NT support for the MIPS processor, NEC Corp. and Toshiba Corp. will move ahead with development of the next generation of the RISC device, executives said.IP confab mulls copyrightsAn international conference on intellectual-property protection opening here today could afford the Clinton administration an end run around Congress on the digital-copyright issues at the top of the U.S. legislative agenda, say critics of the administration's position on copyright protection.Codesign alliance targets mainstreamLooking to bring hardware/software codesign to mainstream designers, Viewlogic Systems Inc. has joined with Eagle Design Automation (Beaverton, Ore.) and Applied Microsyste ms Corp. (Seattle) in an unusually broad sales, consulting and support alliance. Their pact can support activities ranging from software development and debugging to ASIC test and verification.
Wednesday, November 27, 1996Videoconferencing aims at low-cost mobile arenaTwo companies are about to unleash low-cost, portable videoconferencing systems built around PCMCIA cards. Aiming their laptop-based products at mobile markets, electronics giant Toshiba and Silicon Valley startup Winnov use Type II PCMCIA cards with different software approaches to produce systems that will sell for about $500.High-level tools eyed for FPGA platformsA session on high-level programming tools for reconfigurable computing at the recent Photonics East show here revealed a variety of approaches aimed at making field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based hardware comprehensible to a wider audience.Planar optics: path to big screens?A thin-display technology based on passive optical waveguides may give large-screen projection displays a run for their money. Invented by a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, the polyplanar optics display (POD) stacks paper-thin layers of glass or transparent plastic waveguides to yield overall display thicknesses of 1 to 2 inches. The cost-effective technology maintains that thickness range for any screen application, from a 10-inch TV screen to a 20-foot-high wall display.Fuzzy-logic simulation adds freeware toolsEngineers who use MathWorks' Matlab as a prototyping and simulation tool can now incorporate fuzzy logic into their designs with the freeware Fuzzy Logic Toolbox, written by professors Olaf Wolkenhauer and John Edmunds at the University of Manchester's Institute of Science and Technology.Intel tool protects LANs from virusesIntel Corp. has combined its talents in client-side virus-protection software with its LANDesk network-management software to create the LANDesk Virus Protect family, intended for extending virus protection across NT and Netware networks.
Tuesday, November 26, 1996Tariff deal nears on info technologyU.S. industry officials said they got most of what they wanted in a high-tech tariff agreement announced last week in the Philippines. Now they must wait to see if the tentative deal holds up until the World Trade Organization (WTO) meets later this month to ratify the Information Technology Agreement.Use of Windows GUI growsIn yet another sign of the increasing significance of Windows-based EDA environments, Aspect Development Corp. has adopted the Windows 95/NT user interface across all platforms in its Exp lore Component and Supplier Management (CSM) system, including workstations.CSIC integrated for auto applicationsMotorola Inc.'s CSIC Microcontroller division has commercialized its ability to combine microcontroller, power MOSFET, protection circuitry and memory on a single chip for automotive-control applications.Handheld scopes add featuresTektronix Inc. has beefed up its TekScope family of handheld instruments with two new members: a unit the company claims is the world's fastest handheld oscilloscope (it doubles as a digital multimeter) and another scope that measures important power parameters. In addition, the two original members of the THS700 family, introduced last year, get a capabilities updating.NEC rolls out 8-bit MCU for serial busNEC Electronics Inc. showed its support for the Universal Serial Bus at Comdex /Fall. High-end USB applications will be served by ASIC core controllers, with entry-level requirements addressed by 8-bit processors.
Monday, November 25, 1996Sharp's processor beats the clockData-driven architectures, long the subject of academic study, are about to break into the commercial market via the New Media Processor (NMP) chip from Sharp Corp. The company will use a bank of self-timed, data-driven signal-processing engines under the control of an ARM 810 core to perform video decoding, audio processing, graphics and related operations in a chip scheduled for announcement next summer.Net tools target collaborative designA slew of companies that have discovered the advantages of collaborative engineering in cyberspace are poised to turn their homegrown solutions into commercial products.PC vendors pre pare new assault on TVWaging a "war for eyeballs," the PC will push deeper into TV territory next year, propelled by new interface software from Microsoft Corp. and a number of combo PC/TV systems.Chromatic Mpact may get X86 coreChromatic Research Inc. will tape out its Mpact2 media processor this week, sending the design files to an elite circle of semiconductor partners that has now expanded to include SGS-Thomson Microelectronics (STM). The release will initiate not only construction of the second-generation Mpact chip, but also a struggle among the three silicon partners to differentiate themselves without breaking compatibility with Chromatic's vital firmware. The biggest differentiation advantage might go to STM. The company, which has an X86 license and core rights from Intel Corp. via Cyrix, said last week that it would pursue an Mpact chip with an embedded X86 core.56-kbit spe c work advancesWhile the frenzy over 56-kbit/second modems was omnipresent at last week's Comdex/Fall, progress was reported on a fast-track approach to interoperability. Industry meetings were held Nov. 14 and 15 at Rockwell Semiconductor Systems in Newport Beach, Calif., but a realistic schedule for a North American 56-kbit/s standard will see a draft no earlier than late 1997.
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