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News and New Product Briefs (9/15/97)

By Kane Scarlett, JavaWorld.com, 09/15/97

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National Semiconductor's backing gives Cyrix new leverage

With backing from National Semiconductor, chipmaker Cyrix plans to take the thin-client, NC-device world by storm by targeting the NetPC and handheld device markets with its MediaGX processors (from its new plant in South Portland, Maine). Cyrix's MediaGX chipset combines graphics and audio, cutting out much of the cost involved when adding capabilities to low-end PCs.

National Semiconductor and Cyrix have also partnered to complete a "joint reference platform" for a network PC, which is expected to cost somewhere in the 00 range. Delivery date for the platform is planned for late '97. An example unit should look something like this:

  • A 166MHz multimedia CPU
  • 8 megabytes of DRAM
  • An Ethernet adapter
  • 64-bit graphics
  • Audio
  • A keyboard and mouse
  • Windows NT with a desktop-management interface


Cyrix officials believe they haven't been able to compete in the PC chip market because historically they've had to lease their manufacturing capabilities from others, making the cost higher than market. And Steve Tobak, Cyrix's VP of corporate marketing, said, "We didn't have our own fabrication plant, and we lacked product breadth. This relationship resolves those issues."



Integrity Arts gives Sun access to the JavaCard market

Sun announced it has acquired Integrity Arts, a software development toolmaker that specializes in creating object-oriented Java applications for smart cards. Sun hopes its acquisition will allow the company to standardize the JavaCard API.

"Sun is interested in making Java ubiquitous, and our technology helps them do that. We want to bring smart cards to the next level of maturity," said Patrice Peyert, president of Integrity Arts. Peyert added that developing smart card systems usually takes 18 to 24 months, but with Integrity Arts' technology, the development and deployment time can be reduced to as little as a month, depending on the complexity of the operation.

The 16-person Integrity Arts was founded in 1995 by Gemplus, a large smart card provider headquartered in Gemenos, France. Stuart Bagshaw, EVP of Corporate Strategy at Gemplus, said Gemplus is happy to hand over this technology to Sun. "The whole purpose why we funded Integrity Arts was to create standards for smart cards. We felt by passing over the custodianship to JavaSoft [Sun's Java business unit], they could put lots of energy behind it and that helps standards along."



Netscape quickly and quietly repairs Navigator 4.02 Java bug

Some Navigator 4.02 users reported that when they visited Java sites with the newly released browser, it would display a message saying their "system classes were not signed." The Java components would then fail to run. In addition, Navigator 4.02's push program, Netcaster, displays the same message when it is started -- and then won't load.

Why? Netscape product manager Dan Claussen confirmed that the standalone version of Navigator 4.02 on the FTP site didn't have the certificates it needed to run Java properly. He added that the company chose not to change the version number of that archive, so there could be several versions of the file n32e402.exe around, with different dates and file sizes.

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