Intel on Thursday, 26 May. 2005, formally introduced two new chipsets designed for home and office PCs:-

1. Intel’s Professional Business Platform, or the 945G Express Chipset, bundles networking and advanced management technology.
2. The 945P Chipset includes consumer-oriented features such as advanced audio and video capabilities.

Intel has now turned their focus to the combination of chipsets and processors, instead of processor speed as a marketing tool.

Quoted:
With processor speed becoming less of a marketing tool, Intel has turned its focus toward selling “platforms” that combine a processor, chipset and peripherals such as networking or audio capabilities.

The Professional Business Platform (945G) is aimed at IT administrators and introduces Intel’s Active Management Technology (AMT) that aids in monitoring, installation of security patches and remotely diagnosing hardware problems. The 945G chipset also enhances power management, reduces noise and packs in new networking features.

Whereas for the consumer platform, the 945P boasts 7.1-channel surround sound and multiple output jacks for sending audio to numerous devices around the home simultaneously.

Anyway, both 945 chipsets will feature Intel’s Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950, which doubles 3-D performance and supports the latest high-definition displays. Intel says the technology was developed with Longhorn, the next release of Windows, in mind.

[Source]

On May 25, 2005, Nokia launched a new type of mobile device, which it is calling an Internet Tablet, which it said will focus on Internet browsing and e-mail.

The device, called the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, is based on Linux and has built-in support for both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It sports an 800 x 480 display and an on-screen keyboard.

Quoted:
“Linux is a logical choice for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet as Linux and the Open Source development platform provide us with fast and efficient solutions to build products for this new Nokia product category,” Janne Jormalainen, Nokia’s vice president of convergence products, said in a statement.

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Nokia Launches Linux Internet Tablet

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is going into the consumer electronics market with a new line of Geode chips for gadgets.

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The new Geode LX800 is an energy-efficient processor for small computers, set-top boxes, TVs and handhelds, according to Chief Technical Officer Fred Weber. The chip runs at 533MHz and is said to provide the equivalent performance of an 800MHz processor from Via Technologies.

Geode chips only consumes about 0.9 watts and does not require heat sinks or fans !! As a result, it drives down the cost and the weight of the devices. Furthermore, it’s an x86 chip, so all the conventional software produced for desktops will run on it, unlike many CE chips. In other words, almost all the software we are using in our desktop computer is able to run on Geode chip.

Well, this is no doubt another good news from AMD. :)

The conventional harddisks we are using today are using platter to store data, this type of harddisk will consume more power if compared to memory-ship based harddisk.

So, to reduce the power consumption and increase the read/write speed, Samsung is going to launch a flash memory based replacement for conventional hard disk drives. The solid-state disk (SSD) uses NAND memory chips instead of a mechanical recording system, this ensures lower power consumption and high data rates.

Quoted:
The first SSD with parallel Advanced Technology Attachment interface will ship in capacities up to 16GB. Such a device will feature sixteen 8Gb NAND memory chips and will cost approx. $900 with the current market prices of these chips.

One of the big advantages of SSD is its power usage, it requires only 5 percent of the power used by a normal HDD and it weights less than half as much. The SSD can read up to 57MB per second and write up to 32MB per second.

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Intel is expected to officially release its Intel 945X Express chip set and dual-core Pentium D chips on Thursday, May 26, 2005.

Intel, which often uses its annual desktop chip set launches to add new features to desktop PCs. This time they have added to the 945X a higher-performance built-in graphics processor, along with support for faster memory and a higher-bandwidth Serial ATA hookup for hard drives.

Quoted:
The chip set, which follows 2004’s Intel 915 Express—a product the company said was one of its most important in years—will become the backbone for a new generation of midrange and high-end PCs for corporations as well as consumers.

All 945X chip sets will offer dual-channel support for DDR2-667, a newer version of the DDR2 RAM and a 3G bit-per-second Serial ATA connection for up to four hard drives. Today’s 915 Express chip-set PCs offer DDR2-533 RAM and use a 1.5G bit Serial ATA connection.

The 945X chip set also adds support for up to six PCI-Express slots for add-in cards, a 1,066MHz front side bus, and two additional versions of the RAID standard. The addition of RAID 5 and RAID 10 will allow desktops to use as many four hard drives, versus the two-drive setups offered now.

I suppose the launch of this new chip set will certainly help Intel to capture more market share. :)

[Source]

O2 today launches the new Xphone IIm, a converged device that incorporates business tools and entertainment features into a Smartphone form factor.

With the latest Windows Media Player 10 built into the O2 Xphone IIm, you can quickly and easily access music and video files stored inside the device with a single touch of the dedicated soft keys located strategically below the 2.2-inch TFT-LCD screen. A dedicated Internet Explorer hotkey further provides convenient, direct access to the Internet.

Xphone IIm offers as wireless modem, GPRS and Bluetooth connectivity. However, it is still running on the Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphone edition operating system, instead of the soon-to-be-launched Windows Mobile 5.0.

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