Monday, July 8, 2002

From the too-strange-not-to-be-true department... As reported in the Washington Post, Richard Wool of the University of Delaware has filed a patent for a new, faster microchip fabric. No, it's not lithographic DNA strands or anything so fantastic. Quite simply, this new fabric is composed of nothing other than chicken feathers. One possible alternative for increasing a chip's speed is finding a quicker material than silicon. So Wool turned to the chicken feather. He knew that feathers contain lots of air; because birds need to fly, their feathers are strong but light, mainly due to their high air content. Perhaps, Wool figured, the presence of air would make electrons travel faster. And you thought the prospect of Cold Fusion sent a chill through the world's Oil companies... Posted by Network Computing at 11:27:24 AM

new on the blog Good morning all. After a short holiday hiatus, we're back in the office, hard at work on a number of site goodies. Top of the list is week two of our July 8th print issue. It's filled with some real hands-on advice on topics such as locking down your Web services and selecting the best fibre channel switch. It's also got some sneak previews of Languistics' B-Monitor and Sockeye's GlobalRoute 2.0. Also something you may find of interest is an interview I conducted with Rob McCormick from Savvis Communications. It's in Real streaming format, so grab your player and tune in to hear Robert talk about Savvis' forthcoming private, business to business network that lives within the wilds of the global Internet. Posted by Network Computing at 12:25:00 AM