News

If Google actually expects people to buy these things, they better make them a lot cheaper. Different models will range from around $350 to $500 bucks. Netbooks and laptops with more capability can be had for the same price. Google's own products are going to start cannibalizing one another. Who needs Android for phones, Android for tablets, AND Chrome OS. I don't think they're taking the right approach. If they want to do anything with Chrome OS, they should just make it a free download and allow folks to just install it on their own hardware.

Quote

Samsung and Acer will each be offering the first Chromebook laptops starting June 15. The Samsung Chromebook will cost $429 for the Wi-Fi only version and the 3G version will cost $499. Acer's Wi-Fi only Chromebook will cost $349.

The devices will be available for sale in the U.S. from Amazon and Best Buy starting June 15.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20061896-266.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

According to AMD/ATI the new Catalyst 10.9a Hotfix drivers address some issues with the HD4850x2 and HD4870x2 video card performance. Hopefully this is the case, and hopefully it will address an issue that has been seen around the web dealing with CrossfireX on some of the HD48xx's and even some HD5xxx series of cards running specific motherboards. This issue is not really wide spread, however there are some of the "gamer" series of motherboards that have experienced this issue, and we can only hope that AMD/ATI has addressed these issues in the new "hotfix" drivers. This issue was addressed in the Catalyst 10.8b drivers, and we have to wonder why this was not carried over to the original Catalyst 10.9 drivers.

At any rate, this is what AMD/ATI has to say about the new 10.9a Hotfix Catalyst drivers:

* ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 and ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 series of products use both Graphics Processing Units (GPU) for high performance
* Intermittent hangs with Pop Cap games in a system with an ATI Radeon series graphics card installed
* High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) overscan / underscan settings are restored upon system reboot

Instructions:
Download and install the ATI Catalyst hotfix from the following location:

* ATI Catalyst 10.9a Hotfix for Windows® 7 / Windows Vista®

Refer to Article 20870 for detailed instructions on how to properly install the ATI Catalyst™ hotfix.

Note! This hotfix is provided as is and is not supported by AMD. It has not completed full AMD testing and is only a driver update.

Applicable Products:
This article applies to the following configuration(s):

* Hardware
o ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 series of products
o ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 series of products
* Operating System
o Windows 7 32-bit Edition
o Windows 7 64-bit Edition
o Windows Vista 32-bit Edition
o Windows Vista 64-bit Edition

For further information, or to download the new Catalyst 10.9a drivers you can go to the main download and information page below.

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/ATICatalyst109Hotfix.aspx

The USB Promoter Group have finally provided the finalized spec for the "SuperSpeed" USB. It is said to be 10x as fast, I'm assuming that means around 4.8Gbps (Gigabites per second). Actually transfer speeds will probably be substantially less.

Quote

Among the initial devices, external solid-state (flash) drives and hard drives are expected to be popular. "The first SuperSpeed USB devices will likely include data storage devices such as flash (solid-state drives), external hard drives, digital music players, and digitial cameras," the group said. Products aren't coming until 2010, however. "It is anticipated that initial SuperSpeed USB discrete controllers will appear in the second half of 2009 and consumer products will appear in 2010," according to the group. "The USB 3.0 Promoter Group is now accepting adopters of the USB 3.0 specification, which as been finalized at the 1.0 level," the group added.

USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with the older specifications. It will be a smooth transition just as the original USB to USB 2.0 has been.

It is official. NVIDIA is buying the PhysX maker. Full PR here. This may spell trouble for AMD considering that all major physics engines have been bought (Intel owns Havok). What the industry needs to do is make some open standards. They've got OpenGL for graphics. It sounds like it is time for OpenPL.

Quote

NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA), the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AGEIA Technologies, Inc., the industry leader in gaming physics technology. AGEIA's PhysX software is widely adopted with more than 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on Sony Playstation3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Gaming PCs. AGEIA physics software is pervasive with over 10,000 registered and active users of the PhysX SDK.

You didn't know that AGEIA survives by supplying the physics engines of all three current consoles?

AMD has finally introduced a graphics integrated processor since it's ATI acquisition. It's quite expensive, but an excellent step forward. I'm sure it will eventually lead to cheaper consumer market processors.

Quote

"The FireStream 9170 features up to 500 GFlops, or 500 billion floating point operations per second. AMD's second generation stream processor is built with a 55 nanometer manufacturing process and consumes less than 150 watts of power. The processor is a single-card product with 2Gbytes of onboard GDDR3 memory to compute large datasets without CPU traffic. Asynchronous direct memory access provides data flow without interrupting the stream processor or CPU. The FireStream SDK enables software developers to access application programming interfaces and specifications for performance tuning at the lowest-level of the processor, and for compatibility with future chips. The SDK is also available to develop third-party tools. The AMD FireStream 9170 is scheduled to ship in the first quarter of next year at a price of $1,999."

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202804105

Apple has released its new line of iMac computers. The new design spec is made of aluminum and glass. Besides being absolutely gorgeous, they also come with some better standard specs. The pricing starts at $1,199.00 for a 20" version. I guess Apple decided to do away with the 17" altogether. I would love to get my hands on one of these, but I will wait until the new version of OSX is released in October. Apple continues not only to lead with software innovation, but also in design innovation of all of its products. Clearly, they understand the difference between a good computer and a perfect peice of hardware.
I'm going to now go ahead and plug my own article about design innovation in tech products: »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=210

See the new iMac: http://www.apple.com/imac/

You won't be sorry.....

This is a huge move for open source software. Dell will begin offering Linux pre-installed on its computers. This is for home use even!

Quote

Dell has heard you and we will expand our Linux support beyond our existing servers and Precision workstation line. Our first step in this effort is offering Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebook systems. We will provide an update in the coming weeks that includes detailed information on which systems we will offer, our testing and certification efforts, and the Linux distribution(s) that will be available. The countdown begins today.

You know what this means. Throwing out the garbage Broadcom chipset for wireless that has no open source support at all.

Google is going to release its own mass market phone............ Great........... This company is really starting to irk me. When is it going to stop? Enough said.....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801143.html

Quote

"To be sure, feverish speculation about Google products has been wrong before. Google was widely reported to be building its own line of personal computers a little over a year ago. What in fact materialized was a set of free software programs designed to make any existing Windows PCs easier to use. But Richard Windsor, a phone analyst with brokerage Nomura in London, told clients late last week that unspecified Google representatives at a major European conference in Germany had confirmed the company is working on its own phone device. "Google has come out of the closet at the CeBIT trade fair admitting that it is working on a mobile phone of its own," Windsor said in a note entitled "Google Phone: From myth to reality." "This is not going to be a high-end device but a mass market device aimed at bringing Google to users who don't have a PC," he said."

Seagate has just produced the most advanced hard drive security. It uses a whole lot of authentication and encryption techniques. Seems pretty good to me, but maybe just a little overkill for the average user. It will be geared more towards the government and any private corporations that carry sensitive data. Using this tech, the company or government will also no longer have to publicly release information about lost or stolen laptops. Very interesting...... http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-6166180.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news

Quote

"The Seagate drives are equipped with the company's new "DriveTrust" technology, which the company promotes as a simpler way to safeguard data stored on laptops. The encryption technology is designed to make life tougher for computer thieves and to prevent embarrassing breaches. Seagate is also in discussions with major, brand name laptop makers and expects to announce more deals for its new hard drive midyear.

For more detail about the tech, visit: http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsid=8227

Apple is going to create a smaller notebook computer that will use flash memory (I guess this will be competing with tablet PCs). Obviously this has been done with the OLPC project, however, I think that they will be the first mainstream computer manufacturer to offer it. I'm sure it will be a bit more expensive. It's will also be featuring a more lightweight version of OSX..... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17521893/

Quote

"The maker of the popular iPod music player and Macintosh computers hopes to introduce so-called flash memory in small computers known as subnotebooks in the second half of 2007, Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research who has a "buy" rating on Apple shares and does not own any stock, said in investor notes Wednesday and Thursday. A shift to flash memory in place of much slower hard-disk drives would eliminate one headache for consumers: lengthy start-up times when turning on computers. Apple, known as a technology innovator, would be among the first personal computer makers to use flash memory for storing data in computers, a step that some chip memory makers, including Micron Technology Inc., have said is inevitable as prices for flash decline and storage capacity increases."

We knew it was coming. Though, it's a bit disappointing that the graphics chips won't be for gamers. However, I do see the business side of what AMD is doing here. With these chips built onto boards, PC's will become fully "Vista Ready" without the need for a separate graphics card. This lowers the cost of "Vista Ready PCs." It'll be very popular in the mid and low end PC market, and a big win for AMD. AMD needed to find some way to create new revenue to fund further R and D. This way they can compete with Intel's Core 2 Duo, which is by far the best processor on the market today..... http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/16800947.htm

Quote

"Advanced Micro Devices will announce today the first fruits of its $5.4 billion acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies -- a new graphics chipset. The development is an initial step toward the ultimate goal of the merger: combining onto a single chip the functions of the microprocessor, the brains that orchestrate a computer's operations, with those of the graphics processor. AMD said the new graphics chipset, the AMD 690, can be placed onto the main motherboard of the PC, eliminating the need for an add-in graphics card to handle three-dimensional graphics. Sunnyvale-based AMD said the new chipset, available in March, should help lower the cost of graphics-capable computers. More than 30 motherboard makers plan to work with the new chipset, AMD said."

This was a necessary move from Kodak. They've been constantly losing money since people started printing their own digital photos at home. Becoming competitive in the printer market is a perfect solution. They still get to make money printing people's photos at labs, and now at home. With ink prices as low as they intend to make them, I think I'll give their printers a try. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17003995/

Quote

"Kodak said it will in March start sales of 3 EasyShare All-in-One printers, ranging from $150 to $300, which will print, scan and copy document and photos. Black replacement ink cartridges will sell for about $10, and a color one for about $15, about 50 percent less than its rivals, Kodak said, adding that it will profit on sales of both printers and ink. Kodak said this strategy is meant to disrupt the market dominated by HP, Canon Inc. and Lexmark, where inexpensive printers are sold at a loss, and profits are earned over the long term in sales of replacement ink cartridges. In that model, consumers purchasing ink unknowingly also buy expensive brand-specific technology that is built into each cartridge, Kodak says. “You are throwing that (technology) away and buying a new one every time you buy one of their cartridges, which is pretty expensive stuff, said Cheryl Pohlman, a marketing director at Kodak. “With our system we have put that print head right into the printer... so all you have to buy is ink.”"

The CEOs from both companies are new supporting each other. Previously, Sun had been AMD only. Intel is making strides into markets they lost due to the agile AMD.

Quote

Schwartz has been instrumental in transforming Sun into a more neutral company. In 2004, when he was promoted to chief operating officer and McNealy's No. 2 man, Sun buried the antitrust suit hatchet with Microsoft. He was willing to work with Linux, too. He even floated the idea of running Solaris on Intel Itanium and IBM Power processors--the latter idea now a reality by virtue of OpenSolaris' portability. And most relevant to Monday's news, he was an advocate of x86 servers, not just Sun selling its own, but also Sun offering Solaris as a free download that could be installed on machines from IBM, HP and Dell.

At the Macworld conference Apple finally gave truth to all of the rumors. The "iPhone" really does exist. The "iPhone", though Cisco legally owns the name, will debut with two models (4Gb and 8Gb). Though I'm sure the phone is very nice, it's a little expensive ($499-$599). Cingular will be the exclusive service provider (2-year contract required).

Quote

"Jobs called the phone a widescreen iPod, Internet communicator and mobile phone in one. The phone is thinner than a Motorola Q and features no physical buttons. Instead, it employs a revolutionary touch-screen interface that intelligently changes depending upon what a user selects. The Apple leader indicated that the company set out to develop a smart phone that would make today's current smart phones look dumb."

Of course, it will run OSX and much of the same software and widgets. It will also have GSM/EDGE Wi-Fi capabilities. Now, while you are reading this, I'll be purchasing some Cingular shares.

It's almost a crime that Sony and Toshiba can't work out a standard format. Instead of working towards technological advances together, they take the over-capitalistic approach. Each wants its own tech to be the standard with no compromise. So, the war still wages. Meanwhile, LG takes advantage of the entire ridiculous situation by being the first to release a product that plays both.

Quote

"LG offers flexibility to consumers in the next-generation in optical disc drives. The GGW-H10N is compatible with both Blu-ray Discs and HD-DVD formats. The Super Multi Blue drive is compatible with Blu-ray Disc, DVD, CD read/write and HD-DVD-ROM (read), offering consumers the most universal unit available. The GGW-H10N can record up to 50GB of data, equivalent to 4-1/2 hours of high- definition video or 22 hours or standard definition video (on a dual layer 50GB BD-R/BD-RE recordable media). Surpassing the market standard, LG is providing a 4x recording speed of Blu-ray Discs, which means that it takes only 23-24 minutes to burn a full single layer BD-R disc (25GB), compared with 46-47 minutes for conventional 2x recording."

I'm glad that LG is going to be the company laughing on the way to the bank, not the two greedy innovators.

The drive costs about $600 making it relatively cheap compared to previous incarnations. Flash can handle wear and tear better than traditional drive that use mechanical parts but they don't have the write cycle longevity of the traditional drives. New technologies help alleviate this problem.

Quote

The flash drive isn't for everyone. At 32GB, it is far smaller than the conventional drives found in current notebooks, desktops or even MP3 players. Many business users, however, never max out the capacity on their drives. The drive will also add about $600 to the cost of a notebook. Those prices will crimp sales, Handy said. "There are certain applications where it can be used, but I just don't see it for business where the most violent thing they (users) will encounter is a cab ride in New York," said Handy.

I understand the need to have a fast external connection port other than the old SCSI stand-by. I don't like how it can only connect one device at a time instead of daisy-chaining multiple devices. They say it isn't there to replace USB... Wait and see for high-speed devices.

Quote

The higher speeds of eSATA compared to USB could grow more obvious as consumers try to wrestle with ever-larger quantities of videos, photos, music and other data. "Backing up a terabyte across a USB port would be incredibly painful. That's going to drive demand for a high-speed port like eSATA, said Roger Bradford, who leads storage work for Intel's chipset and graphics marketing group. However, the challenges of eSATA are as considerable as its advantages. First off is the usual chicken-and-egg problem of technology that requires backing from multiple companies. It's not worthwhile for PC makers to add eSATA ports if there aren't eSATA drives, while eSATA drive sales are gated by mainstream availability of built-in eSATA ports.

DDR2 is very mature. It has been out for a couple of years and the timings have really come down to make DDR2 a prime choice for overclockers. How does Crucial's Ballistix stand up? Find out here...Next Page »

This season may be light in Notebook sales due to a shortage in batteries. Get your laptop now. By the way, the difference between the original Core Duo and the Core 2 Duo is slim.

Quote

Some in the PC industry are shrugging off any notion of shortages, and others are remaining tight-lipped about the impact of the recall on their supply. Some even suggest that Compal might just be trying to use the situation to negotiate favorable pricing. But if there is an impact, analysts say the fourth quarter could shape up as a typical case of the haves versus the have-nots. "You don't want to have a situation where you can't sell a $1,400 notebook because you don't have a $25 battery," said Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates. "But if this plays out in the usual way, the big guys will get what they need, and the little guys will get screwed."

Everytime I read an article about the FCC, I am reminded on why it sucks. The latest reminder... the Cable Card. Yeah, what about that piece of technology that should be for all cable companies? I can get a HDTV with a built-in tuner and still require a tuner from the cable company.

Quote

In 1998, the FCC directed the cable industry to develop a physical device--now called a CableCard--containing the security functions that could be inserted into the equipment of independent manufacturers. That made sure their boxes could be used with cable systems around the country. The FCC thought this separate security device would allow multichannel video program distributors to retain control over the security function while enabling independent entities separately to market navigation devices. The cable industry has so far supplied about 200,000 CableCards for use in more than 140 models of digital cable-ready devices. But the vast majority of cable subscribers continue to use equipment leased from their cable companies.

Hot on the heels of the Intel Core Cuo 2, IBM has finally announced a non-console version of the "Cell" processor used in the PS3. I personally want to see how the Cell will do in normal computers.

Quote

It's being marketed as a device for "compute-intensive" operations, which confirms expectations that Cell would be introduced on the high end, and touted for its number-crunching ability. Each QS20 blade will feature a pair of Cells, each of which is what the STI coalition -- Sony, Toshiba, and IBM -- describes as a "multi-element" processor, rather than "multicore."

Some really interesting battery technology is coming down the pike soon. I'm talking about replacement laptop batteries. Imagine being able to use a laptop for an entire day (meaning 24 hours) on a 'charge'...

Quote

The borohydride solution releases its hydrogen as it flows over a catalyst made of ruthenium. The hydrogen passes through a membrane and combines with oxygen in the fuel cell, generating electricity and waste water. Theoretically, this could achieve an energy density up to about 2200 watt-hours per litre Gervasio says, compared to 200 watt-hours per litre for a lithium polymer battery.

In a twist of fate, the Xbox can be used for stroke rehabilitation by violating the DMCA. Things that should be legal (such as hacking something you purchased) can promote an increase in health and science as this news post shows. I am happy that this has occured and I hope that Microsoft sues under the DMCA. We need to get rid of these dumb copyright laws. Maybe some dumb lawsuits will get the skirts in Congress thinking for a change.

Quote

Rutgers' low-cost hand rehabilitation system is based on the commercially available Microsoft Xbox video game and Essential Reality P5 gaming glove that detects finger and wrist motions to manipulate on-screen images. The engineers made minor modifications to the equipment and created software that delivers two types of finger flexing exercises needed to help recover hand functions in stroke patients.

Apple has released their new Core 2 Duo iMacs. You can get the details on Apple's website.

Quote

The fastest iMac ever, the 24-inch iMac provides professional performance along with the convenience of an all-in-one design. Like its 17-inch and 20-inch siblings, it features the new 64-bit Intel Core 2 Duo processor with speeds ranging from 1.83GHz to 2.33GHz. The new processor delivers up to 50% more performance than the previous 20-inch iMac. It also doubles the amount of L2 cache, the twin cores sharing 4MB between them. The result? Turbocharged performance, making it easier - and more fun - than ever to work with digital photos, movies, music, and the web.

There was a discussion on the forums about flash drive wear and tear. How about taking a hard drive and putting flash on it? And not stuff like D/SRAM, flash... yeah.

Quote

ReadyDrive has spawned a new category of flash-assisted hard drives. Both Samsung Semiconductor Inc. and Seagate Technology have announced hybrid drives that integrate a 1.5-in. magnetic hard disk with up to 256MB of onboard flash. Both are expected to be available early next year. A competing technology from Intel Corp., code-named Robson, places the cache on the motherboard, along with a controller chip. Robson will launch with Intel�s Santa Rosa notebook platforms in the first quarter of 2007.

There is a news article claiming that this year's holiday season may be driven by Core 2 Duo chips. The majority of retail sales are driven by margins and whatever the salesperson can push on the customer. Only a very small percent of the market will be swayed by the speed of the chips.

Quote

But some analysts, such as NPD Techworld's Stephen Baker, fret that without a compelling reason to upgrade a PC this holiday season, holiday shoppers will spend their money on goodies like digital televisions and gaming consoles. In that sense, "the Core 2 Duo probably couldn't have come at a better time," Titera said. On top of the buzz that comes with a new chip, the performance delivered by the Core 2 Duo could also generate interest in high-end desktops that also deliver better margins for PC companies, he said.

This is the largest overclock I have seen. This silicon germanium chip normally runs at 250 GHz at room temp. At 4.5 deg K, it runs at 500 GHz. Awesome stuff coming down the pike.

Quote

The experiments, conducted jointly by IBM and Georgia Tech, are part of a project to explore the ultimate speed limits of silicon germanium (SiGe) devices, which are said to operate faster at cold temperatures. Ultrahigh-frequency SiGe circuits have potential applications in commercial communications systems, military electronics, space and remote sensing. The research could make possible a new class of powerful, low-energy chips that will deliver future applications like HDTV and movie-quality video to cellphones, automobiles and other devices.

SiS has released it's new 655TX chipset for the P4 platform today. It's a DDR dual channel chipset that supports the latest P4 800Mhz HT cpu's as well as the addition of thier Advanced Hypersteaming Technology. Motherboard makers using the new chipset should be shipping this November.

SiS 655TX press release

Having seen a few preliminary benches from it's previous sibling the 655FX, this chipset should be able to outperform Intel's 875P chipset. It should also bring prices for P4 motherboards down to a more reasonable level.

There has actually been an increase in semiconductor sales. Hopefully, this signals better growth ahead for the technology industry.

Quote

Market conditions have improved in the past few weeks. In device markets, inventories are back to normal levels, pricing has stabilized and in some cases, there are shortages of critical components, Gartner reported. The market for digital cellular handsets remains robust, and demand for consumer-electronics gear has not waned.

AMD has just started a new logo plan for 64bit computing. I personally don't care about 'logo'ing things, just say something works. Damn Microsoft.

Quote

AMD, which refers to the 64-bit chips collectively its AMD64 platform, will offer three similar logos, including one for the AMD64 platform and one each for the chips. The logos will be used in AMD's advertising and packaging as well as ads and packaging from third parties that license the icons.