On Thursday, if you had asked anyone else in the industry which CPU maker that Microsoft would choose for their X-Box, the answer probably would have been AMD. However, Microsoft surprised everyone (including AMD) by choosing Intel at the last minute. While the details behind this decision are secret, from what I heard, it was Intel's last minute offer Thursday night that did it. While some are speculating that Microsoft chose Intel because of doubts about AMD being able to supply large volumes of CPUs, I think the real reason was simply that Intel offered Microsoft a better deal monetarily. Looking at the recent supply of high-speed Athlons versus high-speed Coppermines, AMD has had a slight edge over Intel.

AMD’s other big announcement last week was the release of their 1 gigahertz Athlon. In comparison to Intel’s 1GHz Coppermine, the Athlon falls slightly behind due to the fact that its cache is running at only 1/3 the CPU speed, when the Coppermine’s cache is running at the full CPU speed. However, AMD’s fabs are liable to make the Athlon 1Ghz successful. While Intel's barely able to produce 1Ghz chips to supply demand, AMD's pumping out the gigahertz chips. This was shown at GDC, as Intel only had a few 1Ghz systems, whereas every system in AMD’s booth (with the exception of one 850Mhz machine) was a gigahertz machine. It’s widely known that in the mass computer market that users "buy by the megahertz", so if AMD is able to pump out the gigahertz chips faster than Intel, they’ll definitely gain a leg-up on Intel, at least temporarily. And if history repeats itself, that means more price cuts from both Intel and AMD.

Since 3D sound is generated based on a generic head and ear model, it has traditionally worked well for about 50% of the population. This explains why you may think 3D sound is garbage, while your neighbor can't live without it. Sensaura set out to fix this problem with their new Virtual Ear technology, which is set to hit the market in a few weeks.

3D positional audio is created by passing a sound through a set of HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) filters. These HRTF sets are commonly acquired with a model of an average sized head and ear. However, since the shape of your head and ears can significantly affect how your mind positions 3D sounds, these generic HRTF filters often don’t work too well for some people. To fix this problem, Sensaura has designed Virtual Ear technology. In a nutshell, Virtual Ear technology creates a custom HRTF for your head and ear size. Virtual Ear goes beyond a simple "pick one of five sizes" setup and allows users to pick a completely customized HRTF. The HRTF is selected after about 5 minutes of simple listening.

Sensaura licenses all their technology to hardware manufacturers, so it is likely that we will see Virtual Ear in some, but not all upcoming Sensaura products. (Ed note: Turtle Beach has already confirmed that they will be using it in their upcoming Santa Cruz card.) Sensaura plans to sell the Virtual Ear application directly online to anyone who owns a sound card that uses Sensaura algorithms (about 20 million such cards exist), for around $10-20. If Virtual Ear technology works as planned, it will be a must-have for any Sensaura owner. It’s expected to ship in a few weeks and we will be reviewing of it shortly.