IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 09/07/2009

Best Buy and TiVo form 'strategic alliance'
Rumored pretty much since yesterday, the partnership between electronics chain Best Buy and DVR expert TiVo has been officially announced as the thing to "transform the digital home entertainment experience." Basically hoping to boost their revenue, Best Buy and TiVo will look into making user interface features for TiVo DVRs sold by Best Buy that will provide users access to the latter's digital services.

"We recognize that our ability to get much closer to the customer in their enjoyment of digital services in the home is one of our greatest opportunities," Homeister continued. "TiVo's award-winning user interface, and its ongoing, innovation provides a unique combination of factors for Best Buy to further build its digital home presence."

The agreement between the two companies will see Best Buy (try and) drive TiVo DVR sales through new marketing and merchandising initiatives, and will give it 'consistent presence' in the TiVo Showcase area of the TiVo platform. Moreover, TiVo is planning to integrate its UI, search, and other features in Best Buy's Insignia, Dynex products. Overall it's going to be more TiVo in Best Buy and more Best Buy in TiVo. What could go wrong?

HIS makes Radeon HD 4350 with PCIe x1 interface
Apart from its occasional IceQ models HIS is pretty much keeping a low profile with its graphics card offer so it's quite intriguing to see it come up with a PCI-Express x1 Radeon. The HD 4350 iFan comes with the RV710 GPU boasting 80 Stream Processors, 512MB of DDR2 memory and a 64-bit memory interface, active cooling, plus D-Sub, DVI and HDMI outputs.

The PCIe X1 card, which could be an interesting choice for boards without an x16 slot, is clocked exactly the same as its PCIe x16 brothers, which means the GPU and memory are set to 600 and 800 MHz, respectively. The catch with HIS' card is that it will be almost three times more expensive than the PCIe x16 versions.

Intel to retire the Core 2 Duo E7300
Top CPU manufacturer Intel has just sent word that it will be retiring the 45nm Core 2 Duo 7300. The LGA775 part, clocked at 2.66 GHz and boasting 3MB of L2 cache, is just another victim of the phrase 'market demand has shifted to other Intel processors' and, according to its maker, will be available for orders until November 13.

The tray version of the CPU is planned to continue being delivered up until January 7th, 2011, while the boxed version will stop being shipped much sooner, on February 12, 2010. Now where are those Lynnfields?

MSI 770T-C45 motherboard pictured
Soon MSI is going to expand its AM3-ready motherboard line-up with a new model, the 770T-C45, and you can see it just below. This upcoming sub-100 Euro board features the APS (Active Phase Switching) power saving technology, the Easy OC Switch, has support for AM3 processors, comes with four DDR3-1600 memory slots and one PCI-Express x16 slot.

Looking almost the same as the 770-C45, the 770T-C45 also comes with six SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, one PATA connector, 7.1 channel audio, Gigabit Ethernet, and is Windows 7-ready. Expect the motherboard to reach stores in the next few weeks.

Buffalo to roll out new 24x DVD writer
Buffalo has just unveiled the DVSM-X24U2V, a 24x external DVD burner ready for server your optical disc needs. Seen below, the drive measures 160 (W) x 50 (H) x 220 (D) mm, weights about 1.2kg, has USB 2.0 connectivity and can be used both vertically and horizontally. In terms of write speeds, the upcoming release will top 24x for DVD-R/+R SL, 12x for DVD-RAM, 8x for DVD-R/+R DL and DVD+RW, 6x for DVD-RW, 48x for CD-R and 32x for CD-RW.

The DVSM-X24U2V will become available (in Japan) later this month and cost about $91.

LG intros the M237WS Full HD LCD monitor
LG Japan has just updated its PC monitor line-up with a new model, the Flatron M237WS. Seen below with a sleek and shiny black bezel, the 23-inch display has a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, a 5ms response time (GTG), and a contrast ratio of 1000:1 (20000:1 DCR).

The M237WS also boasts two 3W speakers, a PiP (Picture in Picture) function, and D-Sub, DVi, and dual HDMI inputs. The monitor is expected to reach Japanese stores in under a week and cost about $320.

F88 netbook packs VIA Nano CPU, has HDMI output
Chinese company Shenzhen Zaiben Tenology is putting VIA's latest low-power platform to good use within a new netbook called F88. All black and sexy, the portable PC weights 1.3kg and features a 10.1-inch screen with a resolution of 1024x600 pixels, a VX855-based motherboard, a 1.6GHz Nano processor, 1GB of RAM, an 160GB hard drive and S3 Chrome9 integrated graphics.

The F88 also boasts 10/100 LAN, WiFi, 3G, a multicard reader, a 1.3 or 0.3 megapixel camera, both D-Sub and HDMI outputs, and a 6-cell battery providing up to 8 hours of operation. No word on pricing or availability but we'd sure like to see something like this out in European markets.

Laptop Hunters ads return, PC still trumps Mac
After a fair but not necessarily needed share of IE8 ads, Microsoft has rolled out a new commercial in the Laptop Hunters series. This time we have Matt, Olivia and their baby looking for a laptop with a large screen, long battery life and the ability to share photos (BEd: Right...) for under $700. The search obviously includes a look at Apple MacBooks but the conclusion is that they can't find any fruity machine $700, with the end result being the purchase of a HP Pavilion dv7. Yes, it's a PC, but we kinda knew that even before seeing the ad.

Buffalo announces new hardware encryption-enhanced flash drives
Securing data on a flash drive can be a tricky thing so for a while now Buffalo has been offering products that ease the process thanks to a little thing called automatic hardware encryption. This feature enables all data transferred to the drive to be encrypted and thus kept safer from evil doers. Now, since you can never have too much security, Buffalo has decided on releasing five more flash drives, from three different families that have hardware encryption.

The 16 and 32GB RUF2-HSCUW, 32GB RUF2-HSCW, 16GB RUF2-HSCL-U, and 16GB RUF2-HSCL series drives all boast a USB 2.0/1.1 interface, are RoHS compliant, feature the mentioned AES encryption, and are set to become available (in Japan later this month).

The 16 and 32GB RUF2-HSCUW drives cost about $319 and $426, respectively and include the Trend Micro USB Security antivirus, and the Secure Lock Manager software, while the 16GB RUF2-HSCL-U, which lacks the built-in antivirus but comes with the management software goes for $415. As for the last two drives, they both feature a retractable USB connector, don't have Secure Lock Manager and cost $244 (16GB RUF2-HSCL-U - has Trend Micro USB Security, and $233 (16GB RUF2-HSCL, no antivirus).

Samsung to release USB-connected 250GB 1.8-inch HDD
Number one NAND flash manufacturer Samsung Electronics has now announced the upcoming introduction of, no, not a new SSD, but a high-capacity 1.8-inch hard drive. Part of the Spinpoint N3U family, the new 250GB HDD has two 125GB platters, a working speed of 3600 RPM, 8MB of cache, and unlike most offers, it ditches PATA and SATA and uses a native USB connection interface.

"The new high-capacity 1.8" 250GB drive enhances Samsung's product offerings and is ideal for consumers who require a small form factor, high capacity data storage," said Choel-Hee Lee, vice president of marketing Storage System Division, Samsung Electronics. "It is easy to carry around and it is designed to withstand a free fall drop of up to 50 centimeters and be resistant to a maximum shock incident of up to 1500G."

Claimed to consume 40% less power than 2.5-inch drives, the Spinpoint N3U series 120, 160, 200 and 250GB HDDs are set to start shipping to OEMs from mid-July. Apparently the 250GB model goes for $199.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 09/07/2009

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