But the biggest player in the PC audio market is bringing forth a new standard called Environmental Audio (EA). Just like A3D, EA seeks to recreate, from your PC, in realtime, the sounds you hear in the real world. Applications or games that use the EA extension (EAX) will allow the user to feel a truly immersive audio experience.

The first Creative Labs soundcard with EA support is their upcoming Soundblaster Live!, which is a PCI-based soundcard powered by the EMU10K1 digital processor. The only downside to EA is it's optimized for four speakers. Creative claims it will work with two speakers, but the listener will have to be sitting in the sweet spot. With four speakers, the listener can simply sit within the ring of speakers and experience EA to its fullest. If you've ever had to connect four speakers to your PC, then you know how hard it is to run the wires to the rear pair of speakers.

Usually it is very difficult to impose a specific set of standard in the computing industry; unless you're Intel or Microsoft, of course. But Creative Labs' name is well-known in the PC soundcard segment of the market. In fact, they popularized digitized sound on the PC with their first generation Soundblaster card. Games with native EAX support should be arriving late this summer or when X'mas comes around.

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With the IA-64 Merced processor pushed back to late 1999 or even early 2000, the Xeon is more than a stepping stone from IA-32 to IA-64.

The first thing you'll notice about the Xeon is its sheer size. It's about twice the size of the Pentium II processor. In addition, the Xeon is mated for a slot 2 motherboard, instead of the typical Pentium II slot 1 board.

The most important change in the Xeon is the speed and size of its L2 cache. Pentium II's L2 cache runs at half the CPU clock speed and the size is fixed at 512K. The Xeon uses a special type of cache memory called CSRAM (customized SRAM) which allows it to run at full CPU clock speed. The Xeon is available with 512K, 1MB, or 2MB (450MHz or faster) of L2 cache. The Xeon is still based on the P6 architecture and the MMX instructions are still the first generation, not the new KNI (Katmai New Instructions).

Current Pentium II processors and chipsets are limited to a dual processor configuration. The Xeon is able to scale up to quad and even eight processor later. With a quad configuration, 2MB of full speed cache, and the 100MHz FSB (front size bus), the Xeon is well suited for a server or highend workstation environment.

This level of performance comes with a cost. In order Intel to boost their profit margin, they need to market and sell the Xeon as a highend processor. The price of the top of the line Xeon/450/2MB is about $3,000 or more in quantities of 1,000. This is a farcry from the Pentium II/450, which is close to $1,000.

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WASHINGTON, DC (SP)--On Tuesday, Congress approved the Americans With No Abilities Act, sweeping new legislation that provides benefits and protection for more than 135 million talentless Americans.

The act, signed into law by President Clinton shortly after its passage, is being hailed as a major victory for the millions upon millions of U.S. citizens who lack any real skills or uses.

"Roughly 50 percent of Americans--through no fault of their own--do not possess the talent necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society," said Clinton, a longtime ANA supporter. "Their lives are futile hamster-wheel existences of unrewarding, dead-end busywork: xeroxing documents written by others, fulfilling mail-in rebates for Black & Decker toaster ovens, and processing bureaucratic forms that nobody will ever see. Sadly, for these millions of nonabled Americans, the American dream of working hard and moving up through the ranks is simply not a reality."

Under the Americans With No Abilities Act, more than 25 million important-sounding "middle man" positions will be created in the white-collar sector for nonabled persons, providing them with an illusory sense of purpose and ability. Mandatory, non-performance-based raises and promotions will also be offered to create a sense of upward mobility for even the most unremarkable, utterly replaceable employees.

The legislation also provides corporations with incentives to hire nonabled workers, including tax breaks for those who hire one non- germane worker for every two talented hirees.

Finally, the Americans With No Abilities Act also contains tough new measures to prevent discrimination against the nonabled by banning prospective employers from asking such job-interview questions as, "What can you bring to this organization?" and "Do you have any special skills that would make you an asset to this company?"

"As a nonabled person, I frequently find myself unable to keep up with co-workers who have something going for them," said Mary Lou Gertz, who lost her position as an unessential filing clerk at a Minneapolis tile wholesaler last month because of her lack of notable skills. "This new law should really help people like me."

With the passage of the Americans With No Abilities Act, Gertz and millions of other untalented, inessential citizens can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Said Clinton: "It is our duty, both as lawmakers and as human beings, to provide each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her lack of value to society, some sort of space to take up in this great nation."

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In the tradition of the what's hot and what's not list, or Wired's Tired/Wired list...

O F F	O N
Intel Merced	Intel McKinley
Windows 98	Windows 98 SP1
UltraDMA/33	UltraDMA/66
Ultra2 SCSI (80MB/s)	Ultra3 SCSI (160MB/s)
Force Feedback Joystick	Intensor

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