IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 10/06/2009

Rambus celebrates the shipment of over 100 million XDR chips
It may not have much luck in the patent battle with Nvidia, but Rambus still has reasons to put up a little smile, and one of the latest is the shipment of over 100 million XDR DRAM devices - the 50 million mark was reached at the end of March 2008. XDR is a memory standard designed by Rambus which features innovations like the low-voltage, low-power Differential Rambus Signaling Level (DRSL), Octal Data Rate (ODR) technology that transfers eight bits of data each clock cycle, FlexPhase circuit technology for precise on-chip alignment of data with clock, and Dynamic-Point-to-Point (DPP) for both enhanced signal integrity and scalability.

"Consumers' demand for increasingly powerful graphics and computing applications require superior memory bandwidth and power efficiency," said Sharon Holt, senior vice president of Licensing and Marketing at Rambus. "The XDR memory architecture has proven an ideal solution for a broad range of products needing blazing fast speeds and excellent power efficiency. No other memory technology provides the flexibility the XDR architecture offers to system and chip designers."

Manufactured under license by Samsung and Elpida, XDR memory is mostly used within Sony's PlayStation 3 console but it also found its way into certain Toshiba Qosmio laptop models, DLP projectors, Teradici PC-over-IP computing systems, and other devices.

Econo-Keys releases mobile keyboard with reverse-side touchpad
Econo-Keys, a company that specialises in economical and hygienic keyboards offers a very compact keyboard, the EK-76-TP, which includes a very surprising feature, a reverse-side touchpad. The EK-76-TP easily flips over to provide convenient touchpad access, or used from underneath while typing.

The peripheral has 76 keys in total including 12 function keys and is compatible with Windows and Linux. It has almost the size of a netbook keyboard, as it measures 22.6 x 9.0 x 9.7(cm). It is available now for the price of $146, oo but if you order it from the companyأ¢آ€آ™s site you get a 10% discount.

You can click here for more info.

Nokia N86 8MP starts shipping
Finnish phone fabricator Nokia has just announced that its N86 8MP Symbian-powered smartphone has begun to be shipped globally. Weighting in 149 grams, the new HSDPA 3.6 Mbps-ready dual slide handheld features a 2.6-inch AMOLED screen (240 x 320 pixels), an 8 megapixel camera with wide 28mm Carl Zeiss lens, autofocus, and dual LED flash, a stereo radio with RDS, and a kickstand.

The N86 8MP also packs an ARM 11 434 MHz processor, a digital compass, 8GB of built-in memory backed by a microSD slot, WiFi, Bluetooth and USB connectivity, a 3.5mm audio jack, plus a TV out. Previously Nokia stated that the phone will cost some 375 Euro withour taxes.

PhotoFast to release 2TB 3.5-inch solid state drives
Japan-based PhotoFast has now announced a new solid state drive family, the G-Monster 3.5 RAID5 WorkStation Edition. According to its maker, the new line-up includes 3.5-inch drives with capacities of 64, 128, 256, 512GB, 1TB and 2TB that feature a SATA 3.0 Gbps interface, a RAID controller, 256MB of cache memory and provide a top read/write speed of 270 MB/s.

The G-Monster SSDs will be paired up with a one-year warranty. No word on pricing though.

Facebook to offer regular users personalized URLs
Popular social network Facebook is gearing up to start enabling its users to have the URLs of their profile pages personalized so as to contain their real names. Set to make peoples' pages easier to find, the URL-ed usernames will have to be at least five characters in length and only include alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9), or a period or full stop.

Those interested in getting their Facebook username will be able to do so on a first-come, first-serve basis via www.facebook.com/username/ as of this Saturday, June 13. We guess this means Facebook's servers will be put to the test like never before during the weekend as many will rush in to make sure they get the so-called vanity URLs. But, trying to be unique is never a simple task.

Intel Pineview CPU names revealed?
Before the end of this year Intel plans to introduce Pine Trail-M, the successor of its quite popular Atom-powered netbook platform, and although it has already been detailed, only now has info popped up to reveal its (potential) consumer naming scheme. According to a report, Pine Trail-M will be known as the combination of an Atom N400 (codename Pineview-M) series CPU and the NM10 Express (Tiger Point-M) chip, with the former set to initially include one model, the N450 which will be clocked at 1.66GHz , have a FSB of 667MHz, and 512kB of L2 cache (same as the N280), a TDP of just 7W, and an integrated graphics core running at 200MHz.

Moving into 2010, Intel will introduce a new nettop platform and (for starters) two 1.66GHz processors, the single-core Atom D410 and dual-core D510. Expect a lot of manufacturers to jump in and release netbooks (and nettops) using the new platforms so N450, NM10, D410 and D510 should become household names quickly enough.

Core 2 Duo P7450 moving to R-0 stepping
Giving us another reason to hit play on Step Up, Intel has sent word of a new stepping that is being prepared for its 45nm Core 2 Duo P7450 mobile processor. The R-0 stepping doesn't bring any changes to the 2.13GHz CPU's electrical, mechanical, or thermal specification but it incorporates speed path improvements to enable higher frequency bins, and comes with a new CPUID (0001067Ah), as well as new S-Spec and MM numbers. To work properly, the R-0 models will require a BIOS update.

The first R-0 Core 2 Duo P7450s will start shipping on July 20th and lead to the phase out of the M-0 stepping models.

Green House releases new 1080p 21.5-inch LCD too
Green House has now let loose the GH-JEJ223SH-LB, a 21.5-inch widescreen LCD monitor that's trying to brag with a 100,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. The display also features a top resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, a 2ms (G2G) response time, a brightness of 300 cd/m2, two 1W speakers, and D-Sub, DVI, HDMI connectivity.

The GH-JEJ223SH-LB is currently listed in Japan with a price tag of around $254 / 180 Euro.

Google provides online translation tool
Google has now released the Translator Toolkit, on online app that enables people to get and/or help make better translations of the world's texts. Integrated with both Wikipedia and Knol, the toolkit provides automatic translations using Google's well-known system (which supports 47 languages), and lets people correct and collaborate so as to make better translations, it brings a feature for searching past translations, and includes terminology and translation memory management.

The Translator Toolkit is available here in beta form.

I-O Data announces new Full HD 21.6-inch widecreen monitor
Japan's own I-O Data is preparing the release of a new Full HD-capable widescreen LCD monitor, the LCD-AD221EB-A. Seen below, the black-painted display has a 21.6-inch diagonal, a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, a 5ms response time, a contrast ratio of 1000:1, and a maximum brightness of 300 cd/m2.

The I-O Data's LCD also boasts two 1W speakers, D-Sub and DVI connectors, a 3.5-inch audio jack, a 'green' mode which will see it consume about 26.8W during normal use, and is backed by a three-year warranty.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 10/06/2009

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