jdb2 writes with the (honestly labeled) rumor from the Inquirer "that Nvidia is preparing to release an x86 microprocessor with its guns targeted directly at its two major rivals — Intel and AMD/ATI," and excerpts from the just-linked Inquirer article: "THE HOT RUMOR going around IDF ... [is] that the company will do an x86 part. The background whispers say that the part will be announced next week at Nvision ... Nvidia's men in white coats certainly have the brainpower to do it, but they also most certainly don't have a license to sell such a part. NV is basically locked out unless Intel and AMD both decide to be magnanimous, and we would not recommend holding your breath waiting for this to happen ... That leaves the lawsuit option open ... Any attempt to enter the market without a license would bring down Intel legal on them like flying monkeys blackening the sky. It would get ugly. Really ugly. Expensive too.""

For the last two days there have been rumors swirling about the possibility of Dish Network and DirecTV attempting a merger. They tried it in 2001 but the FTC wouldn't approve it. After the recent merger of XM and Sirius, I have to think the FTC has loosened their stance on not allowing large media providers to merge.

Dekortage writes "As today's lawsuit indicates, Hasbro has apparently had enough of Scrabulous, the online word game remarkably similar to Scrabble. Filed in New York, Hasbro's suit is against Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, brothers from Kolkata, India, and asks the court to remove the Scrabulous application from Facebook, disable the Scrabulous.com web site, and grant damages and attorneys fees to Hasbro. Why did Hasbro tale so long to 'protect' its intellectual property rights in court? They waited 'in deference to the fans' until EA had launched the official Scrabble Facebook app earlier this month. EA's version has netted fewer than ten thousand players, versus Scrabulous' estimated 2.3 million. This was the next logical step for Hasbro after filing DMCA takedown notices against Scrabulous in January."

Is it just me? Or is everyone that flies on a regular basis, getting pretty sick and tired on how the airlines are nickel and diming us to death. I have flown nearly 70,000 miles since January 1st and it seems that nearly every flight I take things are getting more ridiculous.

It has been tender central at the day job recently with the sales teams answering multiple tenders from corporate and government clients. It has meant long hours and frustration for everyone with the promise of extra business if we win. Statistics suggests that we will win 1 in 3. Over my time in IT I have seen hundreds of tenders come and go and I wonder why companies bother with the process. The decision process for a critical business system is so complex that trying to define it in a requirements document is unrealistic, and generally limiting.

July is the month the folks over at Sprint have implemented Bandwidth Caps on their wireless data plans. Over the past 6 months I have averaged between 4 & 9 gigs of usage. So for the first time ever I have had to change the way I used the Internet.

Harris Interactive released its 9th annual survey of perception of US top corporates. In rating the most and least respected Google, Intel and Microsoft made it into the top 10. While there are some telco's in the bottom 10 tech companies have kept themselves out of it. This survey only looks at the 60 most visible US companies so not every company is part of the evaluation. What these results show are an indication of how well these companies do with their relationships with their employees, the community and to a growing extent the environment.

I just read an article on CNN that highlighted 11 people that could take Steve Jobs place, just in case something happened to Jobs. It kinda annoyed me. Just because we are seeing the departure of Gates, does it mean all the guards need to be changed?

carusoj writes in with NetworkWorld reporting from a panel at Harvard last week. It concluded that employee non-compete agreements have stifled tech startup development in Massachusetts, where the pacts are aggressively enforced, but failed to hold back the tech industry boom in states like California, where they are mostly unenforceable. We've discussed non-competes often here in the past; Techdirt made much the same point a year and a half back.

Over the past six months I have been traveling a great deal. I have stayed around 40 days in a variety of Hilton properties and another 20 days in Marriot hotel chains. I usually stay in Hilton properties to gain reward points.