IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 10/1/09

Haleron offering dual-Atom-powered netbook
Here's something you don't see every day (and probably for good reason), a netbook equipped with not one but two Atom processors. Yes, you read it right, Haleron's Swordfish Net 102 Dual packs two 1.6 GHz Atom N270 CPUs, through the rest of is specs are a lot less interesting.

Seen below, the 1.35kg dual-CPU netbook also has a 10.2-inch (1024x600) LCD screen, 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, Intel integrated graphics, WiFi, a 3G module, optional Bluetooth and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. Moreover, it has a 3-cell battery which will last up to 3 hours on one charge.

The Swordfish Net 102 Dual comes pre-loaded with Windows XP Home and MS Office, and costs $450.

Microsoft executives receive 20% income cut
Microsoft's senior executive staff have had somewhat of a slap on their paychecks this week, as their total salary is set for a 20% slashing following a historical, albeit awfully negative fall in revenue for the company in 2009.

In a Proxy Statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission it is revealed that while the executives' main salaries have actually increased, they received lower cash incentive payments and smaller stock increases.

"Our named executive officers were each reviewed on their performance on a wide range of measures, which included, for the business division leaders, the financial performance of the business or organisation they led," it said in the filing. "In each case, financial results were less than expected due to the impact of worldwide economic conditions on our business."

Among the executives listed in the filing are CEO Steve Ballmer who had some $90,000 shaved off of his income, and CFO Christopher Liddell who saw a whopping $500,000 taken out of his pocket. Chief Operations Officer Kevin Turner saw the biggest drop though, from $8.6 million down to $5.4 million.

Don't cry for these guys though - with all their millions away in the bank, each of them earn more in one month's interest than many of us do in a whole year.

Internet advertising overtakes television in the UK
In the first half of this year, for the first time ever in the UK, online advertising revenue has leapfrogged over that made through television. A whopping أ‚آ£1.75 billion was spend for online advertising in 1H, accounting for 23.5% of total ad spending, while TV captured 21.9%. To put this in perspective - back in 1998 the Internet Advertising Bureau measured the sum of all online advertising to come to just أ‚آ£19.4 million - meaning that the increase is more than 10 fold!

Countering the milestone, Lindsey Clay, a director at Britain's television marketing body, said the measurement is inaccurate and unfair. "It is interesting but meaningless to sweep all the money spent on every aspect of online marketing into one big figure and celebrate it. Online marketing spend is made up of many things, including email, classified ads, display ads (including online TV advertising) and, overwhelmingly, search marketing. They should be judged individually."

The Internet Advertising Bureau's CEO, Guy Phillipson, says that significant growth is still to be considered, as there is still much untapped potential in the way of marketing online.

"We could absolutely see it grow to being a 30% medium [of share of ad spend], to go past أ‚آ£4bn to even أ‚آ£5bn annually," he said. "Online display advertising has plenty of room for growth."

UK is the first major economy to see the internet marketing sector outgrow television - however Denmark have seen a similar trend in recent years too.

SanDisk intros four new gamer-oriented flash memory cards
SanDisk has now updated its gaming card line with the introduction of a PSP Go-compatible 16GB Memory Stick Micro card, the PSP-ready 32GB Memory Stick PRO Duo and Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo cards, and the 8GB SDHC for Nintendo's DSi. All four cards are aimed to provide gamers with on the go storage for their movies, music, photos and downloaded content.

"Many of the new portable gaming systems offer substantial downloadable content for gamers to enjoy, and our gaming memory cards give consumers the added storage capacity they need," said Tim Sutton, product marketing manager, gaming, SanDisk. "Downloadable games for the PSP system can consume more than 700 MB of memory each, not to mention the large file sizes of movies and TV shows which boost demand for expandable storage."

The 16GB Memory Stick Micro, 32GB Memory Stick PRO Duo and 8GB SDHC cards are currently available at $143, $230 and $48, respectively, while the 32GB Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo card is expected to start shipping later in October priced at $280.

Zotac makes shorter, custom-cooled GeForce GTX 260
To fill the time until the first Nvidia DX11 cards debut, Zotac has constructed a new card based on an old GPU, the GT200. The upcoming release features a black PCB that's noticeably shorter than the one of reference cards, a 4-phase power design, an 8-pin PCIe power connector (as opposed to two 6-pin plugs on 'regular' cards), a dual-slot cooler (also custom), and D-Sub, DVI and HDMI outputs.

Zotac's card also features a 448-bit memory interface, 3-way SLI support, CUDA, PhysX, as well as higher-than-stock GPU and memory (896MB GDDR3) clocks - 625 and 2200 MHz, respectively. No word on pricing or a release date though.

Photos courtesy of Expreview.

Nexus offers new version of the NX-5000 PSU
In order to keep up with the times Nexus has decided on releasing a new revision of its NX-5000 power supply. Pictured below, the fresh (and non-modular) R3 unit offers 530W of continuous power, has sleeved cables, an efficiency of over 82% (80Plus Bronze compliant), active PFC (Power Factor Correction), and a single 12V rail pumpin' 41A.

The NX-5000 R3 is also equipped with a quiet 15 dB(A) 120mm ball bearing fan and can be found priced at $100.

Sony DRX-S70U-W external DVD writer to reach America within a month
Already available in Europe, the DRX-S70U-W slim external DVD burner from Sony Optiarc is going to cross the Atlantic and move into American stores at the end of October.

Coming in black and white, the drive measures 135.5 x 19 x 154 mm, weights about 420 grams, features 2MB of buffer memory, a USB 2.0 interface, and can offers write speeds of up to 8x for DVD-R/+R/+RW, 6x for DVD-RW/-R DL/+R DL, 5x for DVD-RAM, and 24x for CD-R/-RW. The drive is also bundled with the Nero DVD/CD mastering software suite.

Buffalo to deliver 640GB HD-PEU2 portable HDDs
Buffalo has today announced that it will be adding a new, high-capacity model to its HD-PEU2 line of slim and shiny portable hard drives. The upcoming release boasts 640GB of storage space, measures 81 (W) x 16 (H) x 130 (D) mm, weight 190 grams, and will be available in Ruby Red, Crystal Black or Pearl White.

Also featuring a USB 2.0/1.1 connection interface, the 640GB HD-PEU2 drives will debut early next month in Japan and cost about $270.

Motorola CLIQ to sell for $200 with a two-year plan in the US
T-Mobile has announced that Motorola's first-ever Android-based smartphone, the CLIQ (aka DEXT) will be released in the US on November 2nd and will be available for pre-order starting from October 19. The carrier will offer Motorola's phone at $200 with a two-year contract, and will provide a complimentary car charger for every pre-order.

The Android 1.5-running CLIQ measures 114 x 58 x 15.6 mm and weights 163 grams, has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 3.1-inch (320x480) touchscreen, a 5 megapixel camera, and a microSD memory slot. The upcoming phone also includes GPS, an accelerometer, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 and USB connectivity, and a 3.5mm jack.

Radeon HD 5850 reviews start going online
AMD has today given the green light for articles depicting the slower, but more importantly, cheaper model in the Radeon HD 5800 family, the HD 5850. Also equipped with the 40nm Cypress GPU, the HD 5850 has a recommended price tag of $269 ($379 for the HD 5870), and features a shorter PCB than its brother, DirectX 11 and CrossFireX support, a 256-bit memory interface, 1440 Stream Processors, a core clock of 725 MHz, and 1GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 4000 MHz.

The Radeon HD 5850 is already listed in shops around the world but it's not yet available so you have time to check the reviews posted and see if a purchase is in order.

Radeon HD 5850 reviews:

@ AnandTech
@ HotHardware
@ Guru3D
@ [H]ard OCP
@ The Tech Report
@ Hexus
@ PC Perspective

Thursday, October 1, 2009

IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 10/1/09

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