X-bit labs

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Court Finds Apple Not Guilty of Trademark Infringement. Computer Retailer’s Suit Against Apple Computer Dismissed

A judge has rejected an allegation by computer parts retailer TigerDirect for a preliminary ruling against Apple Computer over accusations that Apple’s nickname for the latest operating system, Tiger, infringes on the retailer’s trademarked name and creates difficulties for the company due to frequent appearance in search results of popular search engines.

“Apple Computer has created and launched a nationwide media blitz led by Steven Jobs, overwhelming the computer world with a sea of Tiger references,” TigerDirect.com’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit in late April.

During the hearing, both parties provided slide presentations as exhibits. Apple also called Philip Schiller, Senior Vice Present of Worldwide Marketing, as a witness. Schiller was reportedly present when Apple selected the “Tiger” nickname for Mac OS X 10.4 and testified that Apple had no intention of trading on the goodwill built up by TigerDirect. He said Apple, over the last several years, had engaged in a practice of naming updates to Mac OS X after large predator cats in order to convey the strength and speed of the operating system, AppleInsider web-site reports.

“Turning to the overall impression created by the marks, in the context of each party’s use thereof, the Court finds that the marks are distinctly different. Tiger marks are frequent in the computer industry and that she saw no evidence that Apple adopted the Tiger name in bad faith or that it has caused any confusion in the market place,” Judge Joan Lenard wrote in her opinion denying TigerDirect’s motion.

• AppleInsider: Court Sides with Apple over “Tiger” Trademark Dispute.

• X-bit labs: Computer Maker Sues Apple for “Tiger” Brand-Name.

Dual-Core AMD Athlon 64 X2 Hits 3GHz Barrier. First Extreme Overclocking of AMD Dual-Core Chip

Although AMD Athlon 64 X2 microprocessors were announced only a few weeks ago, results from overclockers are already beginning to emerge over the Web.

Sampsa, a famous overclocker from Finland, has overclocked AMD Athlon 64+ X2 4800+ central processing unit to a 3006MHz frequency, which is currently the world’s top record for this kind of computer chips and is about 600MHz higher compared to the original core clock of the dual-core desktop product from AMD. The experiment was carried out on ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe mainboard with Vapochill LS phase change cooling unit installed.

“Since the A8N-SLI Deluxe with Dual Core support didn’t have any options to raise the Vcore or change the multiplier, I had to run the tests with default voltage (1,49V measured from motherboard). I was able to benchmark SuperPI 1M @ 3006MHz and PCMark04, Cinebench2003 and SuperPI 8M @ 2950MHz,” writes Sampsa, a dedicated overclocker from Finland.

• XtremeSystems Forums: A64 X2 4800+ @ 3 GHz & PCMark04 8548.

Dry Ice: Another Substance for Extreme Overclockers. PC Cooling Using Dry Ice – Worth a Try?

Madshrimps has posted an article about using dry ice, or frozen carbon dioxide. The editorial provides with a detailed guide on how to reach sub zero temperatures with using the dry ice, including how to build cooling-containers, mount them on a processor or graphics card and also where to get the substance.

“Why use Dry Ice? For overclocking only, pure and simple. It is not usable for daily 24/7 cooling, it’s mostly used by those people who like to push their PC to a higher speed. By using subzero cooling you can obtain impressive overclocks. Dry Ice will provide you better performance than air- and water-cooling, as well as single stage phase change cooling setups. Due to its low cost and lower risk than LN2 it can be used easily in a wide variety of environments, cascaded phase change setups are more expensive and require a higher technical barrier as they are not available off-the-shelve,” claims Madshrimps web-site.

• Madshrimps: How to Cool your PC with Dry Ice.