IT-Services
Westlake Village (CA) - 2006 is on track to become the most interesting year for the processor industry since the end of the Gigahertz race. With Intel prepping a new architecture and AMD set to defend its lead with its AM2 platform, customers should see a wave of innovation that goes well beyond clock speed. Tom"s Hardware got a first impression of the capability of the AM2 platform.
Recently the "in progress" operating system hit Milestone 3 (Build 6780) and has a street date of June 3, 2009. But many web sites that posted videos showcasing cool features discovered in the latest build have up and vanished since early this morning. While there are plenty of screenshots to go around, watching Milestone 3 in action seems out of the question.
Dell will begin shipping its first multi-faction color laser printer on Tuesday. The 3115cn aims for small to medium-sized workgroups of 1 to 10 people and offers color printing, standalone and network color scanning, walk-up copying and the feature of a standalone fax.
Internet Explorer rivals are opposing the company"s proposal for a ballot screen that would allow users to choose which browser they want to use.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is working with various groups in developing next-generation Bluetooth technology and expects end products using the technology to hit the market by 2007 at the soonest, according to Kuo-Lian Su, SIG"s Asia-Pacific technical marketing manager.
Lacie"s new "Brick" harddrives do not look like your average external drive. Resembling Lego blocks, the drives can be stacked and they come in red, white and blue colors. The drives are available in desktop sizes of up to 500 GBytes in capacity. In addition, smaller bus-powered drives will be sold to laptop users.
Ҡ
Chicago (IL)
They seem to all think it"ll be in October.
The buoyant price trend of SDRAM is likely to persist, thanks to seasonal effects and limited supply from leading players, according to industry players. DRAMExchange observes that prices of SDRAM have increased recently along with a seasonal demand boost for consumer electronics.
With PC OEMs expected to increase their DDR2 penetration rates to 80% by the end of this quarter, Taiwan memory maker Nanya Technology predicts that the DDR2 shortage should increase to 30-40% in February, with related contract prices growing more than 10%, according to company spokesperson, Pei-lin Pai. Although DDR2 penetration rates among PC OEMs are rapidly picking up, DRAM makers are not keeping apace with the strong demand growth, which should exacerbate the DDR2 shortage in February, Pai noted.
WebriQ starts its Template contest on its newly introduced Pro Package. Company launched its commercial service just one week ago.
Boston (MA) - At a packed session Tuesday morning at TechEd 2006, Microsoft software architect Jeffrey Snover, demonstrated the first release candidate of the Windows command line shell now called PowerShell, sometimes still referred to as Monad. There, he revealed to the crowd that it is a design goal for PowerShell to run as the command provider for all Windows administrator tools, including Microsoft Management Console.
Are you l33t enough to score the $1337?
Wrapping up our Computex 2006 coverage for this year, Tom"s Hardware just published a video interview with Jeff Hsieh, chief executive officer of performance memory maker GEIL. Hsieh provides insight not only in the history of his company but also talks about the challenges of catering to overclockers and upcoming technologies, such as DDR3 memory as well as memory modules that integrate their own power supply.
Although the overall DRAM market is rebounding, DRAM makers are now voicing concerns about a potential DRAM inventory buildup, according to industry sources. DRAM makers indicated that present DDR inventory pressure (with both upstream and downstream players) is escalating and a continued drop in DDR prices should further aggravate the issue.
China has said the country will not force citizens to use the controversial Green Dam software.
Starting Sunday, Wal-Mart will offer the 15.6-inch Compaq Presario notebook for $298
During the Spring IDF in Shanghai, Intel unveiled a new design for its OLPC low-cost netbook for educational use in developing nations, so will the Fall IDF see yet another appearance from the Classmate PC?
With the increasing popularity of netbooks (with oh so ubiquitous specs), standing out is becoming more and more important. Sony hit us with the Vaio P Series Lifestyle PC in January and while it was not a netbook the ultra portable was definitely an eye opener in terms of design.
This probably means that it sold faster than Windows Vista.
Bethesda (ML)
Choose your gift for commitment.
According to a report in BusinessWeek, executives at Mozilla (the company responsible for popular browser, Firefox), are thinking about cutting ties with Google.
G.Skill launched its new triple-channel DDR3 memory kits for the Intel Core i7 platform.
San Diego (CA) - Cymer, a supplier of deep ultraviolet (DUV) laser light sources currently used in semiconductor manufacturing, today unveiled what the firm claims to be the world"s first argon fluoride (ArF) laser light source for 45 nm production immersion photolithography.
Asus steps up the pressure on Creative by showing off the Xonar HDAV1.3, giving the PC audio world HDMI 1.3a compatibility.
Georgia developer licenses xaitControl and high-level AI game tools xaitThink and xaitKnow for their upcoming game, Black Orchid
If youve been eyeing that 8.9-inch Eee PC, it might be time to consider picking one up while theyre still around.
Moscow (Russia) - The Moscow State University has purchased one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. IBM will install its Blue Gene/P supercomputer in the coming months. Two racks of processors will be installed for a total of 8192 CPUs. The resulting computer will run at 27.8 trillion operations per second.
Palo Alto (CA) -Stanford is the next University that receives support from major IT companies to develop new techniques, tools, and training materials to exploit the parallelism capabilities of multi-core processors. And no, that headline is no mistake: The initial group of sponsors includes a colorful mix of rivals and partners: AMD, Nvidia, Sun Microsystems as well as Intel, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, showing first signs that these companies could actually be working together to solve the multi-core programming dilemma. Too good to be true?
Several reports today say that IBM is in talks to purchase Sun Microsystems for a rumored $6.5 billion dollars.
Redmond (WA) - A veteran Macintosh user, upon first hearing that Microsoft today announced a new "Desktop" for Macs only, might come to a different conclusion other than the release of its first wireless keyboard/mouse combination. Today, Microsoft announced its first Macintosh hardware product, which effectively places its company logo on at least some people"s Macs for the very first time. The move may leave some Mac users thinking, "First it was Intel, now it"s Microsoft!"
Las Vegas (NV) - Ruckus Wireless today introduced the MediaFlex USB Dongle that is designed to provide stable, wireless connectivity to in-home multimedia devices such as set-tops and media center systems.
What kind of supercomputer can pre-render HD content, temporarily store it in a virtual cloud, and then stream it across the Internet to numerous portable devices? Why, AMD"s upcoming Fusion Render Cloud, of course!
Ann Arbor (MI) - Researchers at the University of Michigan, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the University of California at San Diego have made a big step towards quantum computing by trapping the spin of one electron in critical dark state - at rates of about 1 GHz.
A car that monitors a driver"s every move could further researchers" understanding of the way driving behaviour is affected by road design, other vehicles and new in-car gadgetry.
Broadcom recently introduced a chip that combines 802. 11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and FM Transmission technologies.
Now that it has the resources of AMD behind, ATI Technologies is confident that it will be able to produce more compact, faster GPUs while being to reach the channel more effectively, and the graphics chip maker has indicated its rival is now standing alone in the market. However, industry sources have indicated that Nvidia will soon announce that it will allow support of its SLI technology on Intel"s chipset platforms, with the two companies already having met to discuss the partnership.
Making realistic character animations for games and movies is tough work for graphic artists. Hand gestures are particularly difficult because of the hand"s many joints and fingers. Motion tracking devices, such as Immersion Corporation"s wireless CyberGlove II, help animators cut production times by allowing them to capture motion, instead of manually moving each digit. Company representatives brought the glove to our offices for a demonstration.
Interview Lots of graphics tech tradeshows are on the calendar for the coming weeks - Siggraph 2008 in Anaheim, IDF Fall in San Francisco, Games Convention in Leipzig and Nvision 08 in San Jose. Intel will play a big role in three of those shows and with Larrabee out and Nehalem almost ready for showtime, we felt it was time to get an update on Intels ray-tracing efforts.
ion interactive, the leading provider of landing page software, today announced the launch of iPhone-optimized quick-start landing experiences
Scotts Valley (CA) - Perpendicular recording will be a key technology to keep the capacity of hard disks growing in coming years. Seagate isn"t wasting time upgrading its products: The company will be shipping a massive 12 GB 1" drive later this year and increase the storage space gap to mainstream flash memory.
Steve Jobs took the stage in San Francisco thirty minutes ago and after a few updates about iPods, MacBooks and Apple stores, he made with the goods: Ladies and gentlemen, the incredibly disappointing iPad.
The worldwide storage software market experienced its 12th consecutive quarter of on-year growth in the third quarter of 2006 with revenues of $2.5 billion, representing a 10.7% on-year growth, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). IDC noted that storage replication, one of the largest storage software markets, once again proved to be a major factor driving the sector"s growth.
STMicroelectronics on August 30 announced a new and enhanced version of its 32 Mb flash memory chip that is intended specifically for the automotive market.
More than meets the eye.
Still no specs but how about a history lesson?
Intel"s marketing machine already is running full speed in order to support the nearing launch of the first generation dual-core processors. Following the enormous amount of information the company provided at its Spring developer forum, it was no surprise that the manufacturer recently supplied numerous media outlets with dual-core processors for review - several weeks ahead of the actual product launch.
The Video Editor"s Wish List of Tools & Techniques in One Package
Sunnyvale (CA)
A number of entry-level desktops built based on the SiS662 chipset from Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS), will be available in June from some OEM makers and the channel market, according to sources at SiS.
A new study released by NPD Group today says that the average price for Macs are twice as expensive as those for the "average PC." According to NPDs study the average price for a Windows laptop has dropped from $877 to just $700 today. Although at this point, NPD Group did not reveal what laptops it was referring to.
Newport Beach (CA)
It seems as though Apple is taking legal action and suing Mac clone company Psystar. The rumour mills have been kicked into overdrive with a report from ZDNet that Apple has finally filed suit against the company that began touting Mac clones back in April.
It takes a lot of guts to ask Steve Ballmer to sign a MacBook Pro.
Cambridge (MA) - A new solar energy start-up called 1366 Technologies has just received $12.4 million in venture capital to help foster and enhance a solar technology created by MIT professor Emanuel Sachs.
Acquire has added Twitter and Atom feed content compatibility to its digital signage players. But has also gone one step further by providing a customisable RSS system for resellers called "MyMessage".
Chicago (IL) - According to Microsoft, Windows Vista is on a path of success and the operating system is flying off OEM and retail shelves. However, a new survey questions how many of those actual Vista licenses are actually in use, as a new survey claims that a substantial portion of PC buyers chooses to downgrade to Windows XP.
Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) today announced the SiS662 chipset, which is targeted at mainstream computer systems based on Pentium 4 and dual-core Pentium D processors. The chipset replaces the 661 model with improved 3D graphics features and one x16 PCI Express interface.
Irvine (CA) - Dual-core processors have reached the entry-level computer market. Emachines today announced its T5212 system, which comes with an Intel first-generation dual-core processor, plenty of RAM and hard disk storage for $520.
A software developer who claims the trademark on the word netbook would like us all to stop throwing the term around freely, but Dell isnt about to comply.
With the mainstreaming of smartphones, the mobile phone landscape has changed dramatically since 2007 and Microsoft is now more than ever pressured to deliver a competitive mobile operating system.
Low inventories are lifting spot market prices of DDR2 memory chips to their highest level in more than nine months. In the past week alone, prices of 533 MHz and 667 MHz 512 Mb chips climbed by more than 10% to $5.92 and $5.97, according to analysis firm DRAMExchange.
Sunnyvale (CA) - AMD is kicking off the critical third quarter of 2008 with three new quad-core processors - two low-power models and a new high-end version for enthusiast PCs. The company maintains its mainstream pricing strategy and sells its new flagship for just few dollars more than what Intel charges for its entry-level quad-core CPU.
At the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, members of AwardFabrik.de managed to break 4GHz using liquid nitrogen cooling on an AMD Phenom 9950 processor. CPU-Z did not correctly validate the clockspeed however, and the AwardFabrik team are still unsure why this was the case.
OCZ announced that it will demonstrate PC2-8000 memory (DDR2-1000) at the Cebit tradeshow, which takes place from March 9 to 15 in Hannover, Germany. According to the company, the memory will leave headroom for speeds beyond 1 GHz, but declined to provide specifics on the memory"s overclocking potential.
Kingston today announced new version of its HyperX memory family targeted at gamers and performance hungry applications. The PC-3200 (DDR-400) version now comes with 2-2-2-5-1 timings and is available in a 1 GB configuration. PC-6400 (DDR2-800) memory now supports 4-4-4-12 timings and is available in 512 MB and 1 GB models.
Despite high hopes for the Slate PC debut, the Microsoft Keynote at CES 2010 was a complete fizzle.
San Francisco (CA) - As other high-tech companies cut back on their research labs, Microsoft continues to increase its ranks of free-rein thinkers.
As a follow up to Micron Technology"s announcement last year that it was able to develop a 1.75-micron design in a 8-megapixel image sensor for digital cameras, the number-one CMOS image sensor company will now begin making the 1.75-micron design CMOS image sensors available for incorporating into handsets, the company stated during the first day of 3GSM World Congress 2007 (February 12-15) Barcelona, Spain. For the new image sensor lineup, Micron is offering three resolutions - 1.3-megapixel for the entry-level segment, 3-megapixel for the mainstream and 5-megapixel for the high-end of the market.
Several DRAM module makers are offering up to 20% higher than spot prices to secure long-term DDR2 supply due to tight supply and expected stronger demand, DRAM makers said. No major DRAM module maker was available for comment prior to publication.
The new Mini USB Flash drive by Supertalent probably is the smallest USB 2.0 flash drive weve ever seen. It isnt longer than a nail on your big toe, and it is available at 2, 4 and 8 GB via Newegg and other etailers. According to Supertalent, the 2 GB version offers less performance than the 4 and 8 GB models. None of them is certified for Vista ReadyBoost, yet they should be fast enough to handle small to medium amounts of portable data. Youll be fine unless you need to move hundreds of megabytes on a regular basis.
Insane feline company is making some new rodents.
The IEEE P1901 Working Group once again failed to reach a consensus on a draft standard for broadband-over-power-line networking at its most recent meeting in Madrid, Spain. The joint proposal put forward by Panasonic and the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, however, remains the odds-on favorite to win the next round of voting, scheduled for November 4 through 6 in San Francisco.
Ҡ
It is nothing new when large entities are a target for something it happens nearly every day and everyone wants a piece of the pie. According to a recently motivated class-action suit, Dell allegedly unfairly targeted women and employees over the age of 40 in recent layoffs.
Although Micron Technology reported improved financial results last quarter by moving away from commodity DRAM, Taiwan-based vendors including Nanya Technology and Powerchip Semiconductor Corporation (PSC) stated that, despite declining DRAM prices, they can achieve profits by lowering their production costs, and they do not plan to shift their focus to non-memory businesses.
New York (NY) - In an elaborate unveiling ceremony featuring no less than the Red Bull Formula 1 racing team, senior executives from IBM and AMD, including AMD CEO Hector Ruiz, introduced a new line of IBM xSeries blade servers - now re-christened "IBM System x" - that promises to slash operations and maintenance costs through the creative use of Opteron processors.
SecurityCoverage, Inc. today announced Windows 7 Microsoft operating system support with optimized performance for SecureIT Free.
Filthy things!
Chicago (IL) - The Internet rumor mill suggests that Nvidia may be cancelling future developments of new nForce media and communication processors, commonly referred to as chipsets. There is no official confirmation from Nvidia and we dont expect such a confirmation anytime soon. But the sheer number of reports and quotes from industry sources certainly is reason enough to keep a close eye on Nvidia.
Ҡ
We bring you all the relevant details of T-Mobiles event unveiling the worlds first Android phone.
San Jose (CA)
Is everyone in a festive panic yet? This time of year brings together family and friends, and usually lots of last minute scrambling. Hopefully today"s deals will help with that! As usual, a big thanks to our partner, Logic Buy, for sponsoring this post.
The yearly Electronic Entertainment Expo show is known for cutting edge game announcements and outlandish costumes, but in recent years companies have been using scantily clad models to lure attendees to their booths. Now the Entertainment Software Association, the organization that runs the event, says that these "booth-babes" will be banned. Companies will be given on warning and then face an immediate $5,000 fine for further violations.
The netbook class of mobile computing is quickly becoming the most lucrative of the computing world, and along with that comes fierce competition to win over the customers, MSI is now showing off a sleek pair of X-Slim netbooks.
ASUS is introducing three new motherboards for the AMD platform at this year"s CeBIT - the M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe, the M3A32-MVP Deluxe/WiFi-AP and the Crosshair II Formula. All three boards use socket AM2+.
Thanks to a possible ban on action games, Crytek may be forced to leave Germany.
Samsung advertises thwe world"s largest Ultra-High-Definition TV
Traditionally, the big names of the IT industry make their predictions the day before CeBIT opens. This time, Microsoft"s Steve Ballmer was one of them and predicted ground breaking changes for the future.
Lexar Media revealed two backup drives, one smaller than a fingernail.
CoolerMaster is showing off a new version of its excellent Cosmos 1000 case at CES, tweaked for maximum performance. Designated Cosmos 1000 S, this unit is a standard Cosmos 1000 with some interesting modifications.
It seems Intel Chairmen of the Board, Craig Barrett has ruffled a few feathers with his keynote speech at IDF.
The PC games space is one thats ever changing. CPU and GPU technology constantly push the boundaries beyond any other platform, but sadly, the PC also suffers the most from piracy.
Ahead of the official launch of Windows Vista operating system (OS), Acer now offers a full range of LCD monitors, with sizes ranging from widescreen 20, 22, 24 to 26 inches, ready and tested by WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) for Windows Vista compliance, according to the company. The tests ensure that Acer"s LCD monitor lines connect to Windows Vista easily.
San Jose (CA) - LAN parties and overclocking go together like cheese and pizza, bread and butter, well you get the picture. At the NVISION conference and lan party in San Jose this week, several overclockers are attempting to boost their processors to six gigahertz and beyond. Its all in the name of fun and friendly competition and "Fugger", the owner of xtremesystems.org, showed off his three-stage cooler that chills CPUs to minus 100 degrees .. thats Celsius, not Fahrenheit.
Santa Clara (CA) - Nvidia GPUs have become the leading processing platform within Folding@Home and continue to grow quickly: GeForce Processors are likely to become the first technology to break the 1.5 PFlops barrier.
San Jose (CA) - Digital videographers know the pain and drudgery of rendering video. Even on the fastest processors, rendering high definition H.264 footage can take minutes, even hours, but an upcoming product by Elemental Technologies promises to cut that time dramatically. Using the stream processing power of Nvidias CUDA-enabled graphics cards, the Badaboom media converter will transcode video faster than real-time. But theres a lot more work that needs to be done because in a demonstration at the NVISION conference in San Jose, Badaboom and the upcoming Elemental Technologies plug-in for Adobe Premiere crashed frequently and sometimes refused to process AVCHD video.
Irvine (CA) - Gateway is trying to take all the guesswork out of over-clocking with its new factory over-clocked FX530 desktop PC. The computer will come with Intel Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Extreme processors and ATI x1900 or x1950 graphics cards. Over-clocked processors traditionally have rarely failed, but Gateway is offering a one-year limited warranty on the FX530.
Consivex Software Ltd is a startup technology company from China. It"s focusing on providing offshore IT outsourcing services to its wide range of customers from North America, West Europe and Asia Pacific region.
West Lafayette (IN) - Now we can point fingers at certain regions within the U.S. when we are looking for the largest producers of carbon dioxide. Drumroll, please: According to a new "Vulcan" map published by Purdue University, the Southwest is outed as a key player and has been found to be pumping out much more carbon dioxide from fossil fuels than previously estimated.
Woods Hole (MA) - The Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts has launched a 30,000-page online resource consisting of encyclopedic information about every living creature ever documented.
Shuttle has provided Toms Hardware with a sneak peak at their stylish new solution to the bulky, comparatively power-hungry basic office or multimedia desktop.
Microsoft officials have confirmed that it, along with PC partners will allow users of its upcoming Windows 7 the option to downgrade to both Windows Vista as well as Windows XP.
The President of the United States is said by some to be the most powerful man in the world -- but should he have control of the spread of information.
Steam sold the PC FPS game Prey for $2.25 and sold all the available keys before the sale ended.
Fremont (CA) - Plextor today announced that it will be shipping its first Blu-ray writer for PC in October of this year. The PX-B900A is an internal ATAPI drive that will include software to playback Blu-ray movies on computer systems with Windows XP and Vista.
Firefox to be more Chrome-like in 4.0 in late 2010/early 2011.
Sunnyvale (CA) It appears that Transmeta has found a successful business model: The company has added Nvidia to its group of Longrun and Longrun 2 licensees suggesting that it is not going to disappear anytime soon.
San Jose (CA) - P.A. Semi is a new player in the processor market that competes for a portion of the cut-throat CPU market. The company hopes to carve out its place by avoiding direct confrontation with Intel: P.A. Semi"s 65 nm low-power dual-core system-on-a-chip design is based on IBM"s Power Architecture. Announced today, the first 2 GHz chips are scheduled to sample by Q3 2006.
The Intel-NVIDIA war heeds warning from CRT Captial Group, saying NVIDIA maybe providing motivation to the chip giant. CRT Captial Group analyst Ashok Kumar issued a warning stating the recent tirade by NVIDIA CEO, Jen-sun Huang may have adverse effects angering a huge, rich, motivated design powerhouse.
Deacom, Inc., provider of an integrated accounting and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software system that is engineered for building component and batch process manufacturers, has issued a new version of the DEACOM ERP Software System.
Last week reports around the web exploded in regard to a Foxconn employee who apparently committed suicide over a misplaced iPhone prototype.
San Jose (CA) - Game lag is a frustrating reality for gamers these days as the effect causes online characters to slow down, freeze or even disconnect from a game. While users have accepted the effect as part of their online gaming experience, Bigfoot Networks promises to reduce lag with network cards that promise a "Lag and Latency Reduction." TG Daily chatted with VP of marketing Bob Grim and CEO Harlan Beverly about the new feature.
Check out this Ragin" video!
Micro-Star International (MSI) on August 8 introduced its MSI NX7600GT Diamond Plus graphics card, the world"s first, as the company claims, graphics card that is certified to support High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) technology. According to MSI, the HDMI-compliant graphics card will be priced at $250, with availability in the global market slated for the end of September.
Santa Clara (CA) - Nvidia today announced a new version of its 8800 series of graphics cards. The new GTS version comes with the 500 MHz core clock and the 1600 MHz memory clock of the GTS models currently available in the market, but integrates only half the memory - 320 MB instead of 640 MB.
Back in August, Many rumor sites noted that Nvidias ForceWare 180 drivers will introduce several major changes.
Are we a nation of Internet addicts? Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine think that some of us are. In a telephone-based study, researchers say one out of eight Americans showed signs of excessive Internet use. They also concluded that the typical addict is a single white male who spends approximately 30 hours a week surfing the net.
Software pirates are the bane to the developers existence, particularly for the PC game maker. Valve Software, makers of the popular Half-Life series and Steam online games service, have a different view on pirates.
Lian Lis new PC-A05N case is small and to the point. Utilizing a front-mounted power supply design, the chassis achieves a unique "short and small" profile with effective air-flow.
Nvidia silently launched their low entry-level GeForce 9400 GT graphics card Tuesday, priced competitively at $59.
Enterprise 2.0 adopters can exercise instant messaging on Android, iPhone, Blackberry and other smartphones.
Blizzard revealed a new character in a recent episode of Jace Hall.
In an effort to speed up computations for research proposes academics and other scientific elites have turned to the processing power of graphics cards. GPUs may not hold the frequency speed records but they certainly have more math processing power than any single CPU today.
1GHz of processing power on a cell phone? That"s right, and Marvell"s PXA168 has enough mettle to do the job!