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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scumbria who wrote (51671)	3/4/1999 9:19:00 PM
From: wily	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572877

>>He is getting warmer<< It's important to go in the right direction <g>

To: Scumbria who wrote (51671)	3/4/1999 9:39:00 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572877

Intel must be nuts. Pentium III only sites? it.fairfax.com.au " Pentium III-only sites coming By DAVID FLYNN \| INTEL is working with several Australian content providers to establish Web sites that are not only optimised for PCs based on the Pentium III processor but restricted to Pentium III machines. The program intends for each Web site to probe the PC and use the chip's Processor Serial Number (PSN) to identify a Pentium III client. "We want the process of moving around the site to be invisible to the user, so there's no time lag as you move from one area to the next," Angelo Lo Certo, Intel's advertising and Internet marketing manager for Asia Pacific, said, although he adds "this is one of the ways we'd like to do it in the future". However, in the early days of the program the PSN will not be employed. Instead, the exclusivity will be obtained by the Web sites "interrogating the processor" to obtain a CPU ID which proclaims the chip as a Pentium II or a Pentium III. This is a generic instruction common to all chips, not one which tags each individual processor, says Lo Certo. "There is no information transaction. The CPU ID is simply a reporting-back feature, not one of actively sending information. It works just as an application would if it was drawing a picture on the screen," he said. In both cases the common goal is to usher owners of a Pentium III into special pages where content such as streaming media, 3D interfaces and animation have been peak-tuned to suit Intel's latest powerhouse processor. Australia is one of several countries where such sites will go live towards the end of March, although Intel would not divulge the names of partners at this stage. It is part of the Web Outfitter project, which is intended to showcase the Net-savvy attributes of the Pentium III and its 70 new instructions, many of which were born with the Net in mind. At the heart of the program is Intel's own Web Outfitter site. It is from here that users will be able to download browser plug-ins that Intel has had optimised for the Pentium III platform, and then click on links to third-party sites that utilise those cutting-edge technologies. "The basic premise is that if you have a Pentium III-based PC your Internet experience will be greatly enhanced," says Lo Certo. The third-party program has its own operating budget above the $US300 million advertising war chest earmarked for the Pentium III, although Intel would not reveal how much would be funnelled into its own efforts or the third-party sites. But the Web Outfitter scheme is not designed to persuade buyers to choose a machine with the Pentium III inside (just as well, considering that behind the big blue door is strictly "members only"). It is an after-sales benefit, designed to increase that vital post-sale satisfaction and reinforce the buyer's decision. "On our own site we're developing themes on various issues, like a magazine," says Lo Certo. "We want to broaden its appeal by making it a little bit like a long periodical magazine that changes its theme once every second month, and that theme is bought to life with added information. "The type of Web sites we're working with then add to that theme. That means not just the traditional uses of the Internet for research and e-mail but also lifestyle-oriented material such as entertainment, recreation and learning, and we'd like to hit some of these high notes with the service." A spokeswoman for competitive chip-marker AMD said that while AMD maintained an "extensive and successful program" to help software and hardware developers enhance their products for the 3DNow multimedia technology built into AMD's K-6 processor family, including the new K-6 III, it had no plans to create a Web-specific content scheme