By Gavin Steacy - Source : Tom's Hardware

Maximum PC has managed to get its hands on the new USB 3.0 cables and have posted an article showing off the connectors for the new standard.

The new USB 3.0 standard, also known as USB SuperSpeed, brings about an impressive 10x increase in bandwidth from the old USB 2.0 standard, which topped out at 480 Mbps. This makes it theoretically possible to transfer a 27GB HD movie in just 1 minute and 10 seconds, as opposed to 15 minutes with USB 3.0. Of course, speeds will be limited by other devices such as your hard drive and portable device, as well as the Mass Storage Device drivers to be provided by Microsoft for Windows. The specification is backwards compatible with older USB specifications.

The USB 3.0 A-connector is noticeably different to its USB 2.0 counterpart. The extra contacts visible on the ends of the connector are for the new data pipes included with the new specification. Two of these pipes are for sending data, while another pair is for receiving data. This bi-directional design allows data to be sent and received at the same time. The older USB specifications only allowed one-way traffic. The downside to having the extra data lanes is the cables have a larger radius than USB 2.0 cables.

In addition, the new standard provides for an increase in power output from 100mA to 900mA, allowing more power-hungry devices to be charged via a USB 3.0 cable, and increasing the number of devices that can run off a USB hub. A change in power-usage protocols has also been made to reduce power wastage on idle devices. The host controller no longer polls the device to check for data transmission. Instead, the devices sends an interrupt signal to the host indicating that it is ready to transfer data.

Intel indicated that it should be running USB 3.0 demonstrations at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

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By Wolfgang Gruener - Source : Tom's Hardware US

NEC today announced that it has begun sample shipments of its new device wire adapter (DWA) LSI chip to enable wireless communication between a Wireless USB host system (such as a PC) and USB 2.0 peripherals. What makes this chip special is the fact that it expands its communication frequency from the conventional frequency range of 3-5 GHz to the 5-10-GHz range.

NEC claims that, as a result, the chip increases the communication speed when multiple Wireless USB-based hosts communicate with peripherals. The company says that communication quality is also improved since interference can be avoided.

Samples of the chip are available for $10 per chip. Mass production is expected to begin in October 2008 and will reach 500,000 units per month by October 2009, NEC said.

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By Devin Connors - Source : Tom's Hardware

The annual Intel Developer Forum is here, and started with an opening keynote given by Intel’s chairman Craig Barrett about things much more relevant than just chips.

Seeing how Intel is one of the world’s largest technology companies, the keynote got off to an interesting start. Instead of delving into a speech about some new technology or manufacturing process, the overall theme of Barrett’s speech was technology in emerging economies. Visiting 30 different countries a year, Barrett has seen every stage of the economic process ranging from the earliest stages of the emerging economies in Africa to the “final” stages in Western Europe.

Barrett is the Chairman of the Board at Intel and he has quite the experience and knowledge to give credit to his claims. He is not alone on these insights though, with others such as Bill Gates making very much the same remarks. The world is becoming more competitive, and the current system that has pushed the U.S. ahead as a technology leader can’t be taken for granted. Continuing focus and innovation are vital if the country is to remain a world leader.

“Everyplace I go I see exactly the same thing. They all recognize that to be successful going forward, they have to know, understand and use technology,” Barrett said. “They have to use technology in education, economic development, health care, and communicating with their citizens...every nation realizes this is the wave of the future.”

One of the most important things an emerging economy needs is local content, said Barrett. “If you’re in sub-Saharan Africa today, you don’t give a damn about what’s going on in Wall Street. You care about what’s going on locally. You need local content for education...for business, for jobs, employment, for agriculture. You need local content for citizens to interact with their governments.”

Barrett also pointed a finger at the United States, claiming that the world’s most powerful nation needs to do more to nurture Research and Development, as well as overhaul the education system. Putting all the new and fancy equipment found in today’s American classrooms aside, much of which is provided by Intel and other tech giants – “A good teacher is the best tool for a good education anywhere in the world,” he added.

Integrating technology into the classroom one of Barrett’s pet projects, but sometimes technology is just too expensive for schools - especially when you’re talking about third-world classrooms in India, Asia and Latin America. The first of Barret’s guests was Dr. Johnny Chung Lee – who showed how classrooms can utilize a cheap and effective touchscreen white board using nothing but a square piece of foam core and a hacked Wii Remote built into a modified dry erase marker. The marker then became a fancy handheld mouse of sorts for electronic whiteboards. The touchscreen could be manipulated at several points, which Lee demonstrated with a generic grid, shrinking and expanding it with two of his fingertips. Barrett joked, “Some whiteboard makers are probably very happy about your invention.”

Next up was Kiva.com CEO Matt Flannery. Kiva.com is a website that allows people with a little extra money to give “micro loans” (about $50 on average, but often ranging from $25 to $250), to emerging businesses throughout the world, specifically third-world countries. “We tend to think of the bottom of the pyramid as people who deserve our pity, or people that deserve donations, but in fact most people at that stage are actually starting business that are quite profitable and quite successful and have high repayment possibilities.”

By giving out two loans a minute and boasting a 95 percent repayment rate, Kiva.com get thousands of applications a day from across the globe and has helped thousands more start a business in developing areas. $50 may not sound like much to the developed world, but it can reshape someone’s life on other parts of the planet, an ability made possible from the power of connectivity. Many of the loans on this service turn out to be by women, yet an issue with the service is still convincing people that their loans may actually be repaid.

Healthcare is yet another issue brought up by the Intel chairman, and his concerns about the current system are understandable. Barrett introduced Dr. Miguel Angarita, a doctor from Colombia who is helping to reshape the way medicine gets practiced on a global level. Working with Groove Media and Technologies, Dr. Angarita showed off a new “Portable Medical Record.” About the size of a credit card, a doctor can take a picture of the bar code on the card and immediately access medical records, transfer records if you are in a foreign country, and send an alert to you primary care physician. To demonstrate, Dr. Angarita took Barrett’s portable media record, scanned it with what looked like an iPhone, and minutes later, Barrett’s doctor in India shows his medical records on a laptop via a webcam.

Barret also spoke to technology and the environment, citing UPS as a major innovator in the field. By using GPS units in every delivery truck, and special efficiency software, UPS now shaves about three million miles off its routes every month, saving money in gas and drastically reducing the trucks impact on the environment.

Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum and sometimes you need some serious cash to get things off the ground. Barrett ended his keynote by announcing the Intel Inspire Empower Challenge which will award $100,000 prizes to people and companies who solve serious problems in education, healthcare, economic development and environment.

While the list of speakers and innovations was impressive, this is Intel we are talking about, and Barrett did not leave the audience completely empty-handed by touching on WiMax towards the end of the keynote. “We should see 50 million people covered by WiMax by year’s end.” Barrett projects a billion people to be covered by WiMAX by year 2011.

Expect more stories out of Intel in the coming day.

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By Jane McEntegart - Source : Tom's Hardware

It seems Intel Chairmen of the Board, Craig Barrett has ruffled a few feathers with his keynote speech at IDF.

This years IDF is missing a couple of big players, namely, CEO Paul Otellini and Vice President Sean Maloney. Fortune reports that Otellini is on vacation, taking the remaining four weeks of an eight week sabbatical employees are entitled to for seven years of service to the company while Maloney (often considered to be next in line for Otellini’s position) is at the Olympics in Beijing.

The absence of either of these figures is a testament to the corporate strength of Intel. That two of the company’s top dogs can go on holiday or attend the Olympics during what is arguably one of the most important weeks of the year for Intel and not compromise the event at all is quite impressive. This year’s opening keynote was instead given by Craig Barrett, Chairman of the Board with some interesting results.

Barrett discussed at length the need for R&D and innovation and slated the U.S. for not recognizing how important these were to the future competitiveness of the country. He explained how further developments in innovative technology could reduce the cost of health care, demoing an electronic medical records system, and pointed out how much funding was being taken up by the war in Iraq.

Mr Barret claimed that education was where it began but that the U.S. lacked in certain compartments compared to other countries, especially in maths and science.

"It all starts with education, and education is the key. Every country recognizes the importance of education, but look where the US ranks from an educational perspective. That’s because we don’t have good, certified teachers in maths and the sciences."

Look out for our full IDF coverage all this week.

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By Jane McEntegart - Source : Tom's Hardware

During the Spring IDF in Shanghai, Intel unveiled a new design for it’s OLPC low-cost netbook for educational use in developing nations, so will the Fall IDF see yet another appearance from the Classmate PC?

We’re inclined to think no. Over the last year or so, Intel has gone from spectator, to OLPC partner, to rival. The details of the differences between the two are messy and vary depending on who you ask, however the end result of the spat is undoubtedly the same: Intel is pushing its own low-cost netbook to developing markets and no longer has anything to do with the OLPC project.

Claims from Intel that the OLPC organization requested it cease support for all other low-cost netbooks including the company’s own Classmate PC and accusations from OLPC that Intel was pushing its own model in countries that had already expressed interest in the XO laptop aside, the last few months have seen the XO laptop flounder and the Classmate thrive.

In Shanghai, Intel detailed the second generation Classmate PC, built on an Intel Celeron processor with 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and mesh network capabilities. Andrew Chien, Intel vice president, Corporate Technology Group and director of Intel Research delivered the news as part of his keynote speech, telling us that the more expensive models would include a 9” LCD, 512 MB of RAM, 30 GB of space, a built in webcam and a 6-cell battery life.

While it may seem like Intel has exhausted all of its Classmate PC talk at IDF China, one can’t ignore the fact that even though most of the attention has been focused on the company’s new GPU, Larrabee or the i7/Nehalem processor, Intel’s push into the cheap and cheerful netbook market has been somewhat of a success. Lately it seems like any news regarding the Classmate is good news while the same cannot be said for the OLPC project.

An omission of the Classmate from this year’s IDF probably wouldn’t cause a stir. However in the time passed since Intel introduced the second generation model of the Classmate, the company has signed a deal with Portugal to provide 500,000 machines to Portuguese school children. This was not only the biggest Classmate deal for Intel but it also put the company nearly neck and neck with the number of XO laptops sold by the OLPC project. Taking into account that Intel managed to match OLPCs shipments in a single deal, it’ll be interesting to see whether IDF San Francisco will see the company sing the praises of the Classmate PC in case it slipped our mind in light of all the Nehalem talk, or if Intel will hold off ’til the new year.

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By Jane McEntegart - Source : Tom's Guide

Apple has announced that it will extend all MobileMe customer subscriptions by 60 days as a thank you for putting up with the countless problems the service has encountered during the transition from .Mac bringing the total free trial period up to nearly six months.

Users hit snags from the beginning with the new Apple service. Many customers complained that they had been charged for what was advertised as a free trial of the service. Moreover, the last month or so has seen bugs galore and service outages to boot, the most notable break in service lasting a full 11 days before customers heard word of any kind of restoration process. When service was restored, customers were told that, while every effort was being made to ensure data lost during the whole debacle was recovered, some of it was gone forever.

When MobileMe was first rolled out, customers were offered a 60-day free trial of the service. Those who were accidentally charged for the service were offered another month free, on top of the initial two months they were already getting. Following the subscription fiasco, Apple offered customers a further 30 days free after it admitted the use of the term “push” to describe everything under the MobileMe umbrella had been erroneous.

Adding on today’s offer of another 60 days will mean customers that have been with the service from day one now have 180 days of MobileMe free of charge. While we think it’s great that Apple is apologizing and accepting that the launch left a lot to be desired and the service isn’t quite up to scratch, all these free trials make it look like the MobileMe team is just desperate to keep people around so they don’t make good on their complaints to switch to another service.

On the plus side, many people have been complaining that they shouldn’t be experiencing these problems with a service they’re paying for and it’s starting to look like Apple won’t be charging them until things start running more smoothly. Apple has just bought the MobileMe team two extra months of time to work out the kinks.

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By Theo Valich - Source : Tom's Hardware US

Chicago (IL) - As the release of AMD’s 45 nm processors Shanghai and, more importantly, Deneb is drawing closer, we are getting a better idea of what to expect from AMD’s next generation of CPUs. The HyperTransport Consortium just released details of the HyperTransport 3.1 specification, which increases the clock speed from 2.6 to 3.2 GHz (6.4 GTransfers/s).

Since the HyperTransport (HT) bus is 32-bit wide, the total aggregate bandwidth grows to a massive 51.6 GB/s (25.8 GB/s in both directions), which is a 10 GB/s improvement over the original 3.0 standard and a powerful tool to improve the performance of HT components such as chipsets and CPUs - including the upcoming Fusion processor.

It is widely expected that motherboard vendors will have no trouble adopting 3.1 support in 3.0-enabled chipsets. AMD’s existing 790FX and GX chipsets should support native bandwidth of HT 3.1 as soon as you pair them with a 45 nm CPU.

The HyperTransport Consortium also revealed the HTX3 specification, lifting the potential aggregate bandwidth of HTX cards to the level of HT3.1: 51.6 GB/s is an impressive number for an extension connector and we are hearing that the standard is already getting some attention in the field of enterprise NAS-boxes with SSD technology.

Possibly most interesting, HT3.1 and HTX3 clear up some of the questions surrounding key features of AMD’s Fusion processor. Without doubt, HyperTransport 3.1 will be used as a communication interface between CPU and GPU and a bandwidth of 51.6 GB/s may open a whole new world of possibilities and an opportunity to be more competitive with Intel in terms of overall performance.

HyperTransport 3.1 will also be included with every Shanghai processor. According to our sources however, the technology will disabled and only HyperTransport 1.1 and 2.0 (up to 22.4 GB/s) will be supported.

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By Christian Zibreg - Source : Tom's Guide US

Mountain View (CA) - GraphOn, a software company that offers remote application access software, said it has filed a patent infringement suit against Google. If GraphOn is right, the Google’s Google Base, AdWords, Blogger, Sites and YouTube services could be colliding with four patents, forcing the search giant to pay GraphOn damages as well as license fees for past and future usage.

Google has built an empire on web applications and just this fact could cost the company big. GraphOn said that Google infringes four patents the company obtained when it acquired Network Engineering Software (NES) in February 2005. According to the suit filed at the United States District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, alleges that Google Base, AdWords, Blogger, Sites and YouTube illegally use a patent-protected method of "maintaining an automated and network-accessible database".

The same four patents were the subject of nine lawsuits that GraphOn filed against IAC/InterActiveCorp, Yahoo, Match.com, Classified Ventures, eHarmony.com, Juniper Networks, and AutoTrader.com. The AutoTrader.com lawsuit, which only covered two GraphOn patents, was settled with a technology license agreement.

According to a press release GraphOn suit seeks "permanent injunctive relief along with unspecified damages". Google is expected to defend itself against GraphOn in court; a favorable outcome for GraphOn could not only be very expensive for Google, but also enable GraphOn to expand its suit to possibly thousands of websites.

"The number of patents now owned by GraphOn as a result of the NES acquisition has increased to twenty three, a number that is expected to continue to increase as patent applications on file at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office mature into issued patents," said Robert Dilworth, GraphOn’s chief executive officer. "Aggressively protecting the technology represented in these patents is an important part of maximizing their value to GraphOn."

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By Wolfgang Gruener - Source : Tom's Guide US

Mountain View (CA) - Application development for Google’s Android cellphone platform is entering a more serious stage as the company releases version 0.9 beta to its developer community. Scheduled for a September or October release, the final version appears to be on schedule and perfectly aligned with HTC Dream smartphone, which also made a first showing yesterday. Android carries the hopes to become an iPhone like platform that is not tied to just one company, but we already know that the platform will not be complete when it launches and lack key features - such as Bluetooth.

That in fact is not error - Android 0.9 does not include the Bluetooth API and even the final version 1.0 will not include support for this key wireless connectivity feature that is used, for example, by wireless headsets. Google said the decision to not include Bluetooth was made due to "significant API changes in the upstream open-source project and due to the timeline of getting certain Bluetooth profile implementations certified."

Developers who played with "early look" versions of Android SDKs will also find that Google removed other features, such as GTalkService (due to security concerns). However, v0.9 also includes substantial changes that make it feel like a much more mature platform. Besides countless UI changes, there is a new home screen and Google added standard applications you would expect from a smartphone - such as an alarm clock, a calculator, camera support, a music player, a picture viewer, and SMS/MMS messaging capability.

Developers are invited to get their feet wet with Android by taking v0.9 beta a bit more seriously. But while Google is working to release Android 1.0 in time for the first devices that are expected to be shipping in the fourth quarter, the company said that applications developed with version 0.9 beta "may not quite be compatible with devices running the final Android 1.0."

To provide an idea how Android will develop over time, Google also published a very rough roadmap that, at this time, does not offer much more information than the fact that Android SDK will be released in the Q3/Q4 timeframe (with industry sources pointing to September/October), the availability of Android devices for Q4, the release of the source code in Q4 and a key announcement that will be made at the Android Developer Challenge II in Q4. "We’ll update [the roadmap] with additional detail as we are able to, but even right now it can help give you a picture of how things will play out as the first phones draw near," Google said.

These first devices include HTC’s Dream, which

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By Humphrey Cheung - Source : Tom's Guide

San Francisco (CA) - William Shatner, known to millions of Star Trek fans as Captain Kirk, is making some serious cash from virtual video autographs through his new business liveautographs.com. Shatner, along with other celebrities like Danica Patrick, Carmen Electra and even Buzz Aldrin, star on the website featuring expensive fan memorabilia authenticated with a short video message. While it may seem hokey to some, the demand is hot and Shatner recently sold more than 200 autographs in a single sitting.

Created last year, liveautographs.com allows customers to buy fan merchandise like shirts, posters and hats for $149 and up. The stuff is then signed by a celebrity of their choice and barcoded. In addition to the signature, buyers can send a message of up to 200 characters to the celebrity when buying the gift. The actors are videotaped, with several cameras, reading or responding to the message. Liveautographs promises to store the video forever and the buyer can simply supply an HTML link to anyone who is doubtful about the memorabilia’s authenticity.

To the average Joe, this may seem over the top for an autographed shirt or baseball cap, but according to Liveautographs.com more than 50% of autographed merchandise is counterfeit - a big deal when you’re talking about a two billion a year market. Shatner is betting that a video of celebrities signing the item should be worth much more than a simple Certificate of Authenticity provided by other autographed merchandise vendors.

In a recent Reuter’s article, Shatner talks about the wacky messages fans have tried to get him to say. One customer asked if Shatner would rather be a starship captain or an actor to which he said, "I can’t even understand your question, but I want you to understand — I’m an actor." While Shatner did play the role of Captain Kirk of the starship Enterprise in the television series and several movies, he’s quite vocal in his disdain of ’Trekkies’, rabid fans of the show.

While the messages for the celebrities cannot contain the name of a business (according to Liveautographs.com’s frequently asked questions page), one journalist seems to have gotten around the restriction. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.com purchased a signed photo from the site way back in May and just received his video reply - "I love TechCrunch." I suppose a three month turn around isn’t too bad.

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By Wolfgang Gruener - Source : Tom's Hardware

Zelenograd (Russia) - Remember AMD’s promise to return to profitability in the third quarter of this year? You may be wondering how this will be possible considering the fact that the company has lost money over the past seven quarters, including $269 million in Q2 2008, and no big bucks advances against Intel are in sight. But we are certain that AMD in fact will report a huge profit for the third quarter that may not originate from hugely increased product sales, but will create the foundation for the much anticipated announcement of AMD’s "Asset Smart".

There has been much talk about AMD’s return into the black over the past seven quarters, which, in aggregate, brought AMD losses of $5.14 billion (including charges). AMD’s numbers became somewhat predictable, if we followed analyst CPU sales forecasts and the company’s claims that it would need at least $2.0 billion in revenue per quarter to return a profit. Cost reductions including layoffs recently took that number down into the $1.6 - $1.7 billion range and AMD plans to cut the requirement to close to $1.5 billion in order to be able to break even.

And even that may be a bit optimistic at the time, as the company brought in only $1.3 billion in Q2, but $1.5 billion in Q1. But a breakeven is a generally believed requirement for the company to announce "Assert Smart", a move that is expected to split AMD into a manufacturing company and a fabless chip development firm. While production numbers of the quad-core Opteron are improving and the ATI has delivered a fantastic graphics chip, there is at least some doubt that regular sales would allow AMD to become profitable again in Q3, especially if we consider the aggressive pricing of Phenom processors and our own impression that the company’s latest Puma platform is showing up in far less Back-to-school notebooks than we would have expected.

And still, there is little doubt that AMD in fact will announce a profit for Q3.

Why? Simple: AMD has just sold its 200 mm wafer equipment to JSC Angstrem, a Russian semiconductor manufacturer. Earlier this year, JSC Angstrem bought 130 nm CMOS equipment from Fab 30 in Dresden for about $190 million. With this part of the deal, JSC has all of the components to start manufacturing computer chips.

There is some doubt about how much money changed hands during the deal and AMD Europe declined to release any numbers. But JSC Angstrem did. CEO Anatoly Soukhaparov told German newspaper SZ-Online that the company recently received a 815 million Euro loan, the "majority" of which is spent on the AMD manufacturing equipment as well as AMD CMOS technology that was developed in Dresden, Germany. We leave it up to you to guess what "majority" really means, but 815 million Euro translates into $1.2 billion at the current exchange rate. This would mean that AMD will get at least $600 million, $190 million of which have been accounted for in AMD’s Q2 result. That leaves potentially more than $400 million for Q3.

We generally would expect AMD’s revenue to seasonally improve from Q3 and the loss from continuing operations to decline, which leaves AMD with lots of room to return into the black for Q3.

According to Soukhaparov, Angstrem plans to start manufacturing chips in late 2009. It seems that the idea is to create a Russian version of Silicon Valley. Zelenograd, by the way, translates to "Green city".

Angstrem is expected to produce Bluetooth, USB, Wi-Fi and similar controller chips, which is seen as way to collect experience and knowledge in modern chip manufacturing. However, the deal between AMD and JSC Angstrem is not done. Soukhaparov also stated that the company is negotiating with the U.S. and EU governments to win approvals to import 90 nm processing technology as well. The executive expects that the 90nm deal could close in couple of years and AMD will continue to supply JSC Angstrem with 90nm equipment from Fab 36, resulting in additional revenues for AMD.

It appears that AMD will be spending the windfall on its Fab30-to-38 conversion, which will turn AMD’s Fab30 into a 45 nm 300 mm Fab from the current 90nm 200mm facility.

Some may call this sale of manufacturing equipment to achieve profitability cheating and it is certainly not the type of profitability we would have expected when CEO Hector Ruiz promised that the company would return a profit in Q3. But if it is necessary for the company to stand up again and follow through with its "Asset Smart" plan, that that is fine with us.

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By Wolfgang Gruener - Source : Tom's Guide

Chicago (IL) - Comcast has begun to quietly, but very aggressively pitch an "economy tier" Internet service to its customers - a service that is generally "not recommended", but squarely aimed at dial-up users and perhaps one or the other DSL Internet users. As all Comcast residential Internet services, this entry-level service also comes with the firm’s mysterious bandwidth cap.

Comcast customers may receive "an exciting" automated message from Comcast these days: Comcast is now actively marketing a "blazing fast" cheaper Internet service for the "every-day low price of $24.95". Every-day low price means that this service is not a 3- or 6-month time limited offer but a regular price that is substantially below the standard 6 Mb/s downlink (1 Mb/s uplink) the company offers for $42.95 per month (excluding taxes and fees).

So, what do you get for $25 per month from Comcast? We had no idea, but if it is blazing fast and Comcast can make fun of DSL speeds with its current "Slowskys" commercials that compares DSL to turtles, it should be fast, right?

The first call we made to Comcast in fact brought enticing news. We were told that the phone call promoted the company’s "economy tier" offering, providing provides 4 Mb/s download speeds and 384 Kb/s upload bandwidth. There was enough confusion about this offering on the side of the sales representative to convince us that we should make at least two more calls to Comcast’s sales department as well as a PR contact.

The second call we made confirmed the 4 Mb/s bandwidth, but mentioned that the service would only be available to non-Comcast subscribers and not in my area (Chicago suburbs). In my case, the cheapest offering would still be the $42.95 service. The third call to a sales rep and a response from Rich Ruggiero, vice president of communications and public affairs for Comcast in Illinois then squashed our hopes, stating that we can’t get 4 Mb/s for $25. Instead, $25 buys a "blazing" bandwidth of just 768 Kb/s (down) and 384 (up).

Interestingly enough, this speed is just half what you could buy from the Slowskys over at AT&T for the same money. AT&T currently offers a downlink speed of 1.5 Mb/s (384 Kb/s up). 3.0 Mb/s (512 Kb/s up) service for $30 per month. 6.0 Mb/s is priced at $35 per month. However, if you are willing to spend substantially more, cable still outpaces DSL: Besides the 6 Mb/s service, Comcast also offers 8 Mb/s for $52.95, 16 Mb/s for $67.95 and 50 Mb/s for $149.95 per month.

It is worth noting that, as part of its residential offering, Comcast sales associates explained to us that the economy Internet plan has the same bandwidth cap as every other residential plan. Comcast declined to specify this cap, but noted that normal use, including music and video downloading, would not hit or exceed this cap. However, in the case a user exceeds the preset limit, Comcast will send a letter, inform the subscriber of "excessive use" and "suggest" an upgrade to commercial Internet service, a sales associate, said.

Note: If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.

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By Nino Marchetti - Source : Tom's Guide US

Mobile phone manufacturers are always spinning new ways to get you interested in their phones. Sanyo is the latest to do so, unveiling its new Katana Eclipse with customizable lighting effects.

The Sanyo Katana Eclipse, which is available through Sprint for around $100 after your customary two-year agreement and rebate, lets you assign illumination effects to specific callers, incoming text or email messages and activated alerts. You can choose between forty different effects using seven LED colors, also setting these patterns to activate to the music playing mode. Beyond this, features of this nice looking phone become pretty standard when held up against similar types.

You’ve got your clamshell design, external music controls, microSDHC memory card slot, stereo Bluetooth, access to Sprint media services, speakerphone, 1.3-megapixel camera and more.

Consider it your own personal disco lights experience.

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By Humphrey Cheung - Source : Tom's Guide US

Pandora is a free website that lets users create their own radio stations based on their favorite artists. It attracts an estimated 40,000 new customers a day and is a favorite amongst iPhone and other mobile phone users. Personally, I’ve been listening to Pandora for a few years and consider it to be one of the best attractions on the web today. There’s no messing around with crap music, just type in the artist you like and only their songs will be played.

SoundExchange collects royalties from on behalf of record labels and artists and US Congressmen are trying to mediate lower rates. Currently online radio stations are levied much higher royalties per song than traditional radio stations.

Pandora makes money with embedded ads from famous companies like Carls Junior and Don Julio. These ads bring in $25 million a year - not bad for web startup - but Westergren says future royalty payments would eat up $17 million of that take. Such a huge percentage could soon doom the company, a company that is approaching a "pull-the-plug" decision according to Westergren.

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By Christian Zibreg - Source : Tom's Guide US

Research Triangle Park (NC) - Lenovo announced a successor for the ultra-thin X300, promising 20% more performance, more memory, a new 128 GB SDD drive option and DisplayPort support. With its upgraded hardware, the ThinkPad X301 is an enticing option next to the MacBook Air, especially because of its flexibility in wireless connectivity.

The original ultra-think Lenovo Thinkpad X300 was released last February to compete, at least on a business level, with Apple’s MacBook Air released in January. It was without doubt one of the most attractive Thinkpads released, but it failed to capture Apple’s design, elegance and form factor (the MacBook Air measures 0.16" its thinnest part versus 0.73" of the ThinkPad X300) and therefore has lived in the shadow of MacBook Air.

On a closer look, however, the X300 weighs 0.1 pounds less, comes with a 64 GB SDD by default and offers more configuration options, such as an internal DVD burner, up to 4 GB of memory, a second battery, cellular broadband internet and a wireless USB card. The X300 and MacBook Air went through several price cuts, but teh Lenovo notebook is currently available for substantially less money.

Lenovo, however, upped the ante with the new ThinkPad X301 notebook, which will become available on August 26. The new model is a solid upgrade to Intel’s Montevina platform with new processor and memory options, more SDD storage and improved multimedia features. It is powered by Intel’s latest Core 2 Duo ULV processor clocked at 1.2 GHz (6 MB L2 cache, 1066 MHz FSB) and DDR3 memory.

Lenovo says that the new processor and memory deliver 20% more performance. Also new is the DisplayPort support. The 13.3" LED backlit screen remains unchanged, but it still offers more working resolution (1440 x 900) than the MacBook Air (1280 x 800).

The X301 still comes with a 64 GB SDD by default, but Lenovo said it will offer a new 128 GB solid state drive option starting in September. The company did not specify the price for the 128 GB SDD upgrade. Other options include HSDPA broadband, while WiMax will follow later this year.

Prices will start at about $2600. The X300 currently sells from about $2100.

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By Humphrey Cheung - Source : Tom's Guide US

Scottsdale (AZ) - A former Microsoft executive is joining less-than-lethal products manufacturer Taser International. Jas Dhillon a former senior executive in charge of Business Development and Strategy at Microsoft will now head up Taser’s new Virtual Systems Division. Dhillon will also become Taser’s Chief Strategy Officer.

Taser has been going through some rough times lately and is currently the subject of several lawsuits. The company recently announced a second quarter loss of $1.6 million and the stock price has slide from $14 at the beginning of the year to under $6/share.

Before Microsoft, Dhillion was the CEO of ZeroDegrees and Blueline Online. Ahh remember those DotCom days?

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By Christian Zibreg - Source : Tom's Guide US

Apple is wasting no time to make its iPhone available to as many people as possible. Following an announcement that the iPhone will be available through Best Buy, AT&T now said that business customers will be able to purchase the handset online. Individual consumers are still left out of the loop and still have to visit an AT&T or Apple store to buy the iPhone 3G.

The carrier confirmed that employees of a company signed up with AT&T’s Premier Enterprise program can now purchase the handset through its Premier online store. Online purchases still require a two-year service contract. Only authorized company employees can purchase the iPhone 3G online and online purchases are invoiced to the company contracted.

Individual non-business customers are not covered by the new policy and are still required to visit an AT&T or Apple store to sign a two-year service contract and have their iPhone 3G activated. Small business owners who wish to take advantage of the Premier store can apply online for an AT&T Mobility Business Agreement. Besides business customers, the program is also available to higher education institutions and government agencies.

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By Christian Zibreg - Source : Tom's Guide US

Mountain View (CA) - A new service offered by Google enables publishers to inject contextual text or image ads into individual feeds distributed by FeedBurner, the world’s largest RSS distribution service that was acquired by Google more than two years ago. Content creators will certainly welcome this new revenue source, but RSS subscribers have to realize that the era of ad-free feeds is coming to an end.

RSS news have become a convenient tool to keep yourself up to date with practically any kind of online content through a simple feed of headlines, summaries or full articles and in some cases even images and multimedia content. The vast majority of publishers syndicate feeds that users can subscribe to, but RSS feeds have almost entirely been a traffic generation tool and advertising has been largely excluded from RSS. This is likely to change as feed advertising becomes generally available through Google’s AdSense.

It took Google more than two years to figure out the best way to incorporate keyword-based textual ads into feeds. The capability was available to a small, hand-picked group of publishers since May in beta phase and is now available in a final version to anyone. The capability is accessible through a new "AdSense for feeds" option available in the Setup tab of the AdSense account. Detailed statistics about feed audience, distribution, and more can be accessed through the options through a publisher’s FeedBurner account.

Once AdSense is set up for use with feeds, publishers can create a new ad unit with a choice of image ads, options of ad frequency, position, sizes and colors.

"Because feeds can get distributed to a wide array of devices, AdSense for feeds automatically chooses the best size for ads depending on the content, the device in which the feed is being displayed, and other factors," Google said. "Generally, the 300x250 size will display when there’s more content and when your feed is being viewed in a device with a larger display."

The search giant said that its sales force will sell cost-per-impression (CPM) ads directly to the largest advertisers, while the rest of publishers advertising inventory will be filled with contextually targeted cost-per-click (CPC) and CPM ads. "This means that more of your feed items will be sold and with higher overall revenue, than with any other feed network. As with web pages, advertising revenue is generated only when feed subscribers select ad-enabled feed post and display its content.

FeedBurner distributes almost two million feeds coming from more than a million publishers. The service also distributes close to 300,000 videocast and podcast feeds. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, FeedBurner FeedBurner recently closed its ad network called FAN, claiming "the new AdSense for Feeds product" that "will give publishers valuable new revenue-earning potential." In a related note, Google said it will also retire its AdSense referral program at the end of August.

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By Jane McEntegart - Source : Tom's Hardware

Mobility is set to be a huge theme this year at IDF. Just like at Computex (we’re still recovering from the barrage of netbooks and nettops we saw in Taiwan), Intel has promised us a decent amount of mobile content. There’s even an “Open Mic” session about Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) that will see over 20 companies deliver quick-fire talks on new products, ideas and innovations behind what a lot of people are calling one of the fastest markets around.

With mobile going on in big way with IDF, it’s no surprise to see companies are doing what they can to get in early before the big rush. The aforementioned talk on MIDs is on at 4 p.m. Tuesday, but as ZDNet reports, there were a few talks the day before the conference even began with Mary Smiley, director of Intel’s emerging platforms labs kicking off what we expect to be mobile madness at IDF 2008.

Her presentation talked about essentially making devices more in tune to where you are and what you want or need to function in your current environment. She explained the idea in relation to the health care industry with a concept device capable of monitoring a person’s blood pressure, weight, calorie intake and diet. An interesting idea (with a rake of pros and cons, no doubt), but there’s still an awful lot of groundwork to be done on the project.

IDF isn’t supposed to be all ifs and buts and there are plenty of products in store at IDF that are no longer in their larval stage. Similarly, manufacturers of these products are eager to announce their ideas before everything gets a little too hectic and their news gets lost in the IDF headlines.

NEC Electronics is one such company, announcing late this evening, a couple of things we can expect to see from it at IDF. Claiming to be the first company to introduce USB 2.0 host, hub and device controllers to the market, NEC plans on showcasing its progress in wireless USB technologies with a demonstration of its ExpressCard-type host controller (operating with higher-bandwidth BG3 at clock speeds ranging from 6.3 to 7.6 GHz). To prove the controller’s Wireless USB throughput capability, it will interact with the company’s Wireless USB DWA chip integrated into a Wireless USB hub.

The company will also detail its new DWA chip, which enables connection of wired USB peripherals, such as a mouse or printer, to Wireless USB-based systems. It can can also be combined with host controllers to enable high-speed wireless transmission of data between your PC and your peripherals (printer, external HD).

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By Jane McEntegart - Source : Tom's Hardware

IDF San Francisco kicks off tomorrow morning with seven keynotes over the three-day conference as well as countless companies getting ready to show their stuff to the masses on the exhibitor floor, the IDF website gives us an idea as to what we might expect from the conference between now and the end of the week.

The show boasts speakers from the likes of NASA, the iRobot corporation and some of the top names at Intel, not to mention contests sponsored by Alienware that offer “grand prizes” and Guitar Hero competitions. All of this going down proves that IDF San Francisco is definitely not just about computing platforms anymore but it is still the main attraction. So what’s in store over the next few days?

Nehalem — now known as Core i7, is set to be one of the main attractions at IDF. Expected to surface before the year is out (for high-end desktops, at least), the fact that this IDF is so close to the Core i7 release means the conference means we’ll likely be drowning in Core i7 stuff this week. Last years IDF saw a little Core i7 and we saw ten times more at Computex in Taipei. Over the last few weeks it emerged that Nehalem was to be called Core i7, an announcement that we thought Intel would have held off on until IDF unless they had something bigger to worry about, so perhaps there’s still something to be excited about after all.

Another no brainer for IDF is Larrabee, Intel’s upcoming GPU. While we haven’t seen the same volume of Larrabee news in comparison to Core i7, there’s been enough to cause a stir and create a frenzy about any upcoming announcements about the GPU at IFD.

While the high profile stuff like Larrabee and Core i7 will be at the forefront, there’s sure to be more interest in some of the less publicized topics. Recent rumors suggest that Nvidia is most likely to demonstrate CUDA and GPU acceleration with applications such as Adobe CS4 and so, a lot of interest that might have previously been on Core i7 and Larrabee has shifted to the likes of PhysX acceleration, AMD talks and basically anything else that hasn’t been done to death over the last few months.

It is indeed a big week for Intel, and to counter this, AMD has sort of made a habit of having something going on at the same time as IDF. Although a lot of people see it purely as a way to take advantage of all the journalists in the area (and perhaps when AMD first set out to hold an event around the time of IDF, that was all it was), it soon became an IDF rival of sorts. However, now that AMD is looking a little worse for wear, having its own talks at the same time, in roughly the same place seems more like a desperate attempt to piggy back off of Intel’s attendance for IDF.

Keep an eye out for our IDF coverage this week.

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By Wolfgang Gruener - Source : Tom's Hardware US

Yorktown Heights (NY) - IBM and its chip development partners, including AMD, made a stunning announcement today, apparently beating Intel in the successful production of the first functional 22 nm SRAM cell. 22 nm processors are still three years out in the future, but IBM’s news is a good sign that chip manufacturer will be able to easily scale to this new level by the end of 2011. It appears that, for the first time in several decades, Intel may have to put some extra time into its research and development efforts to make sure it can keep its manufacturing lead at 22 nm and beyond.

SRAM chips are typically the first semiconductor devices to test a new manufacturing process as a precursor to actual microprocessors. The devices developed and manufactured by AMD, Freescale, IBM STMicroelectronics, Toshiba and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) were built in a traditional six-transistor design on a 300 mm wafer and had a memory cell size of just 0.1 μm2, which compares to Intel’s 45 nm SRAM cell size (the test chip that was used for today’s 45 nm processors) of 0.346 μm2.

A 22 nm chip is two generations out in the future and AMD even has to catch up with Intel’s 45 nm. Intel presented the first 32 nm SRAM cell wafer in September of last year and in fact is not expected to show 22 nm SRAM cells for at least another year, while first 32 nm CPU prototypes could be shown at IDF this week.

IBM said that it is on track with its 32 nm process and promises that it will use a "leading 32 nm high-K metal gate technology that no other company or consortium can match." IBM did not provide further details to substantiate this claim, however, Intel has been using its high-K metal gate technology since the introduction of the 45 nm Penryn processors in late 2007.

While we are far from actual 22 nm and 32 nm products, it is clear that IBM and its partners are turning up the heat on Intel. For the first time in decades, there could actually be an interesting race towards a new production node.

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By Marcus Yam - Source : Tom's Guide US

Toshiba today announced its "near HD" DVD player, which effectively succeeds the company’s HD DVD players that were removed from the market earlier this year.

Rather than concede to complete defeat by embracing Blu-ray Disc – the competing format against Toshiba’s now dead HD DVD – the company is working on ways to enhance current DVD software. All Blu-ray Disc, HD DVD and most DVD and players available today “upconvert” a standard DVD’s 480 lines of resolution that is scaled appropriately for an HDTV. The result is a picture that is slightly better suited to the display, though it still cannot compare to a natively high-definition source.

CEO of Toshiba Corporation Atsutoshi Nishida said in an interview shortly after the fall of HD DVD that the company developing a player that would give existing DVD’s a leap in quality.

“If you watch standard DVDs on our players, the images are of very high quality because they include an "upconverting" feature. And we’re going to improve this even more, so that consumers won’t be able to tell the difference from HD DVD images,” Nishida said to the Wall Street Journal. “The players would be much cheaper than Blu-ray players too. Next-generation DVD players are in a much weaker position than when standard DVD players were first introduced.”

Toshiba’s first next-generation upconverter player – dubbed the XDE series – will debut later this month, with the XD-E500.

The XDE is for “eXtended Detail Enhancement,” which the company claims is more than just DVD upconversion. The technology will offer user selectable picture enhancement modes that allow for “greater detail, more vivid colors and stronger contrast that bring standard DVD quality closer to the HD experience,” so the company said.

“Consumers have embraced the DVD format like no other technology and invested in large libraries of their favorite movies. As the market moves towards high definition, XDE lets them experience their existing DVD library and the tens of thousands of DVD titles in a whole new way,” said Louis Masses, Director of Product Planning. “XDE offers consumers a simple solution to add on to their HDTV purchase. XDE works with existing DVDs to deliver a near HD experience with enhanced detail and richer colors. Toshiba is delivering to consumers what they want – a high quality experience at an affordable price.”

These enhancements include a "sharp mode" to improve the visualization of details. Toshiba says that "XDE technology analyzes the entire picture and adds edge enhancement precisely where it’s needed." Then there is a color mode that makes "the colors of nature stand out with improved richness," as well as a contrast mode that is designed "to make darker scenes or foregrounds more clearly visible without the typical washing out that can occur with traditional contrast adjustment."

Unfortunately, home theatre aficionados know that similar “enhancement” technologies that are often a part of televisions or DVD players do little but to add undesirable artifacts to the picture. Regardless of enhancements, Blu-ray Discs (and HD DVDs) deliver six times the resolution of a regular DVD. No amount of clever processing can create truly meaningful information where there is none.

With a price of $150, this new XDE player is more expensive than Toshiba’s entry-level HD DVD players at their time of cancellation, about twice as expensive as typical 1080p upconverting DVD players and half as expensive as entry-level Blu-ray players. Unlike other Blu-ray or HD DVD machines, the XD-E500 has DivX certification, JPEG capability, MP3 and WMA playback.

If the XD-E500 is as good as Toshiba claims (and those with massive DVD collections hope), the device could buy undecided HD buyers more time until they switch to cheaper Blu-ray players or devices that entirely rely on Internet movie streaming.

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