Server side is where margins are at. AMD borked a server CPU generation and wound up cleaning house. If the world were different this would not be a recoverable error. Since Intel needs AMD to blunt monopoly supervision, Intel server tech will probably be delayed to give AMD a chance to catch up a little bit. Intel will keep inventing clever new stuff, but stuff it in a closet again as they have done many times before. This isn't a big deal since server tech is so way overpowered from what it needs to be that Intel could probably coast for 6 years before they had to start innovating again. Maybe they'll retask some engineers from servers (and God please, Itanic) to mobile. That would be nice.

Imagination Technologies, owners of PowerVR, recently became members of the Open Handset Alliance four months ago. Open Handset Alliance is the Android booster org. Before this they were a strictly proprietary driver company, and Android devices that used their tech had binary blobs. The binary blobs aren't gone yet, but they soon will be replaced with open source licensed drivers and actual hardware specifications.

So Microsoft needs there to be a mobile GPU tech company that has secret drivers to sell their mobile software on platforms that can't be made useful with a software flash. They cast about and set their sights on nVidia, who has already signed their devil's deal to keep how their PC hardware works a trade secret. They probably promised nVidia something useless to get this - that's their usual course. Now Microsoft's puppet hardware ODMs will build Microsoft nVidia GPU-based tablet platforms that can't run Android, won't sell, and have to be dumped all over the place like Surface RT is now. Expect Surface RT 2, whatever it's properly named, to use this tech. In the end nVidia gets hosed - again. If you sup with the devil, use a long spoon.

Intel used Imagination Tech in their Atom line as well, and that's why you can't get good Linux drivers for those otherwise sweet mini-itx boards. Yet. They're coming. Intel has dropped them though for some reason now in favor of in-house tech.

It's really hard to track the machinations in GPUs.

Nothing. nVidia can't admit that Microsoft (or some Microsoft puppet) owns the source code to their Windows driver, patents on some of their graphics tech.

Consoles are priced low and top tier console makers are looking at tens of millions of units at least, so they fight for every millicent and they have leverage. It probably didn't math out for nVidia or Intel to provide the CPUs (or for nVidia, GPUs) for this generation. The result is that we get a console generation that's a midrange PC with off-the-shelf AMD GPU. That means quick porting of games between consoles and PC and for the most part an end to exclusivity of titles. For the consumer that's a win. For the console maker's it's a club to bludgeon each other with. And that's a good thing too.

Sooner or later both consoles will be cracked, but at this price point that's unlikely to yield the kind of savings that cracking the PS3 did. That was remarkable tech on launch day.

Three words Anti dumping laws, dumping products at artificially low prices into a market in order to seize dominant market share and force competitors out of the market before substantially raising prices. Seems the US in-justice system is asleep at the helm, to tired pursuing whistle blowers and doing the RIAA's bidding.

nVidia's graphics drivers include proprietary and patented Microsoft technologies. They cannot open source them, ever. They made their deal with the devil and they have to live with it.

Via's greatest value is to somebody else. So if nVidia tried to buy them they would just be outbid.

I suggest you read this PDF, which was posted by someone else but has some very good information.

I suggest that you answer the arguments presented, rather than expect any readers of this discussion to read long external PDFs. Or were you counting on that they wouldn't and simply assume that it would back you, since you linked to it?

Whenever there is a tax there are forms to be filled out, reports to be filed and audits to be done. Which frequently ends up costing vast sums of money.

Not in this case, since the exchange can simply add the tax to every transaction like stores do VAT. And frankly, in most of the civilized world "doing your taxes" amounts to receiving a report from the tax department - they already have all the relevant data, so of course they can and, in the interests of enforcement, must, do your taxes for you - so it really shouldn't be a costly affair in any case.

It's exactly the same thing as when one of my neighbors has a TV they want to sell for $10, and I buy it and sell it to a friend across the river for $11. Without my knowledge the neighbor might not have sold it at all.

No, it's not the same, because with HFT the buyer is not across the river, he's in the very same stock exchange. He will see the TV set for sale, whether you meddle in the affair or not. Thus all you've done is made your "friend" pay a dollar more than he otherwise would have to, pocketing said dollar yourself.

There are ways within this system to cheat, but arbitrage per se is not cheating, it's implementing the system of equilibrating the markets.

But we aren't talking about arbitraging between markets. We're talking about a single market, a single stock exchange. And while there's value in arbitraging between points of time - essentially storing resources when they're plentiful and releasing them when they're scarce - we're talking about microseconds here.

As for von Rothschild, you do realize that that was basically insider trading? As is HFT. They're both based on some market participants having information that has not yet have had a chance to become public knowledge. That is the problem with HFT: someone is using their special position in the market to do trades Joe Average possibly couldn't. That's cheating, so why shouldn't Joe use his special position of sheer numbers to have his representatives shut it off?

Not voting is also a vote. When there is no real difference between the candidates offered, how do you protest?

Everyone I know who doesn't vote says this. Corporate media says it's apathy, so your vote doesn't count! You're voting for the status quo. And corporate media says that a vote for a third party candidate is a wasted vote.

You, or if not you then some of your friends or family smoke marijuana. Voting for someone who wants your cousin jailed for growing a plant is far worse than a wasted vote, and the Republicans and Democrats are both prohibitionist parties. If you're conservative, vote Libertarian. If you;re liberal than vote Green. Liberal and Green are votes for "none of the above". Not going to the polls means you're fine with how things are.

"If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice" -- Rush.

Careful, there are a few right wing loonies around here. You should point out that the quote was from the Canadian band Rush's lyrics. Or put on your asbestos suit.

The simplest means would be to charge big fees for cancellations.

Or, better yet, don't allow cancellations. Instead, put expiration times to buy and sell orders with a minimum of, say, 1 day. Or perhaps simply delay all orders for a week or so before attempting to execute them, during which they are completely unprocessed but may be canceled, therefore simultaneously removing HFT and giving people doing stupid things in panic or mania time to calm down.

Even though neither moderation or editing what shows up on your own site is censorship, I agree completely, that's how you should moderate and is how I moderate. After all, "overrated" is just a polite way of saying "-1, brain-dead stupid" when it doesn't mean "not bad but it doesn't deserve a +4."

I don't care what people do on the websites they own. If there are too many trolls and not enough reasoned discussion I leave. If it looks like they're editing, I'll leave. If the site annoys me, I leave.

As to goatse, I don't follow shortened URLs any more.

The AC above said I should browse at -1, why? I've seen few comments at -1 that are worth seeing. If I want to read one, I can. But even as fast as I read I can't finish the internet and it's senseless to browse at -1 unless I'm moderating.

You just told the trolls that they won by publicly bitching about them.

You should be moderated insightful. One of the biggest rules of the internet is Don't feed the trolls.

Help is available for those addicted to feeding the trolls, Biters Anonymous.

um that is the entire point of the internet.

I pay an ISP, you pay an ISP, Company A, B and C all pay different ISP's.

It is the 5 different ISP's job to share the data load between them. Once you start having ISP's charge different rates to other ISP's the entire network collapses into AOLhell. Once ISP's stop working together to connect each other entire value of all ISP's fails. ISP's solely exist to connect tiny communities to larger ones.