Transmeta will launch its first processor on 19 January 2000, according to Germany's c't magazine, and not at Comdex next week after all. The terse c't report claims the chip is codenamed Crusoe because it's aimed at the notebook market. In other words, we're talking about a low-power chip, which while nonetheless welcome does seem a tad less groovy than most of the rumours leaking (or purporting to leak) out of the mysterious silicon company have suggested. That said, Transmeta's filed patents hint at technologies to make applications run considerably faster than they do now, at a given clock speed. So if you're willing to run them at standard speed, you could, we imagine, run the chip rather more slowly than your average PIII and thus make a big saving on power. Suggestions that Transmeta would reveal all at Comdex came from the company's best-known employee, Linus Torvalds. At the end of September he told reporters in Helsinki, the lad's home town, that Transmeta was thinking of saying something about its chip at Comdex. Or perhaps saying when it would say something about its chip. Or not. ®