Intel and Nvidia to work together on Nehalem
GPU maker Nvidia has been in the press a lot lately, for its tight-lippedness on the failure rates of its 8-series mobile GPUs, its dire competition with AMD/ATI, and its new Rambus patent litigation. Today, however, brought some good news.
Intel announced today that the upcoming single-socket desktop Nehalem CPU platform known as Bloomfield will be getting Nvidia's SLI technology, despite an article in the The Wall Street Journal this morning, saying that Intel and Nvidia were still "squabbling over terms of a 2003 licensing agreement" that could have blocked Nehalem chips from having SLI.
New Creative sound systems promise to compensate for poor MP3 quality
Creative introduced two new consumer-grade media players that claim to be capable of identifying different parts of an MP3 track that have lower sound quality, and remastering them to restore sound quality as much as possible.
The Creative Zen X-Fi and Zen X-Fi with Wi-Fi both offer a 2.5-in. TFT display, built-in FM radio, built-in microphone, a video converter, and SD card expansion slot for additional storage. All of the devices measure 83mm x 55mm x 12.8mm and weigh in at 69 grams.
Sun SPARC catches fresh fire with new Fujitsu UNIX servers
A quad-core, dual-threaded processor that until now had been tested by the likes of the Japanese space program, is being unveiled this morning for the consumer space by Sun and Fujitsu.
Last May, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced it had built a supercomputer assembled from 424 new Sun processors delivering 3,392 computing cores, with a design that even some of Sun's employees weren't expecting. With eight threads per processor, they couldn't have been "Olympus" processors, which were only dual-core, dual-threaded. JAXA placed the order from Fujitsu back in February.
Users allege MobileMe lacks true 'push'
While it appears that information between Apple's new service and the iPhone are syncing as advertised, users are finding that push services between the computer and MobileMe don't work the same way.
Indeed, Apple has advertised the service using words such as "immediate," which would lead most to believe its service is exactly that fast. But even after applying an update said to enable computers for MobileMe, immediacy doesn't appear to be happening.
Microsoft Xbox 360 to get Netflix movies, NBCU streaming
Today at E3, Microsoft announced some new features and content partners that will be coming to Xbox Live, the now billion-dollar division of the company.
Of the $1 billion spent on Xbox Live, over one-third was spent on movie and television content, and of all the converged entertainment solutions Microsoft has given its console, today's announcement of a Netflix partnership will no doubt add the most content.
Sprint delivers Windows Mobile 6.1-based Palm Treo 800w
With the frenzy over Apple's latest iPhone finally subsiding, Sprint has rolled out the Palm Treo 800w, a new Treo phone that uses Windows Mobile 6.1 as its operating environment.
As previously reported in BetaNews, Palm has seemed to be focusing more on its newer and lower-end Centro lately, in efforts to bounce back from the huge dent the iPhone is making in mobile handheld market shares.
Indian media company acquires MovieBeam assets
Mumbai-based Valuable Group acquired the video-on-demand service last week for what could be considered pennies on the dollar, according to reports.
MovieBeam promised a push video-on-demand service which delivered ten movies per week to customers using a special set-top box that receives content wirelessly. As it was not an Internet service and required an antenna to receive content, Moviebeam was only available in 31 markets.
Apple claims 1M iPhone 3Gs sold, some may be vouchers
Today, Apple announced the iPhone's opening weekend figures, claiming it had passed the one million sales mark on Sunday, and that 10 million apps were downloaded in the same three-day period.
One by one on Friday, not individual AT&T stores, but entire cities, reported selling out of the device. By mid-morning, Chicago AT&T stores reported total liquidation. By noon, all of New York City's had sold out.
Some iPhone app devs game the system for higher placement
Taking advantage of the way iTunes sorts applications alphabetically, some developers have found loopholes to put their apps at the top of the list.
Spaces, symbols, and numbers are treated alphabetically before letter A in ASCII code. Thus by using these characters, a developer can ensure his or her application a high placement when iTunes sorts the titles alphabetically.
Icahn's proposed Microsoft deal with Yahoo was for more than just search
Why won't Yahoo part with its search business when Microsoft would be offering a rich amount for it, asks Carl Icahn this morning? The answer could lie in the component of the deal that justifies being offered more than triple its value.
In an open letter to Yahoo shareholders this morning (entire press release available here), Icahn Partners chief Carl Icahn revealed that a deal he attempted to broker over the weekend between Microsoft and Yahoo would have resulted in Microsoft owning more than just Yahoo's search business. The most valuable item on Icahn's list of transferrable assets was not the search division -- that was #2 -- but rather a line-item described as "$12.5B in Asian Assets," valued at $9 per share.
Microsoft officially announces cheaper Xbox 360s
On Sunday, Microsoft officially announced the $50 price reduction to the 20 GB Xbox 360 for the US, as well as the introduction of a 60 GB model at the $349 price position.
Employees of several consumer electronics retailers provided corroborative leaks last week, showing sales circulars advertising the Microsoft console's price reduction.
Phoenix firmware with hypervisor to premiere Monday in NEC laptops
BetaNews has learned that, on Monday, NEC will roll out plans to include remotely manageable anti-virus technology in PC notebooks, running outside of the Windows OS in Linux-based HyperSpace firmware from Phoenix Technologies.
NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - Shauli Chaudhuri, vice president of marketing at Phoenix Technologies, told BetaNews this week that NEC will be among the first PC manufacturers to use its HyperSpace technology.
Activision adds Line6 amp modeling to Guitar Hero: World Tour
The next in Activision's popular line of rhythm-based music simulation games is scheduled for release in Fall 2008, and is single-handedly changing the style of the game with the addition of many new features.
World Tour will follow in the footsteps of Rock Band, offering a drum kit and vocal microphone in addition to the expected guitar controllers, which have reportedly also been upgraded. An eight-player "Battle of the Bands" mode, extended character customization, and online career mode, as well as "the largest on-disc set list in a music-rhythm game to date," have been added. A complete set list, however, has not yet been released.
Livescribe's audio pen computer on its way from Windows to Mac
Livescribe's microprocessor-embedded, audio-enabled digital Pulse Smartpen -- an upcoming gadget that made its first bow at Demo earlier this year -- is now expanding its reach, with an Apple SDK already in the works.
NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - The fancy new pen uses the same dot-laden paper as the Fly pentop computer produced by LeapFrog, a company where Livescribe founder Jim Marggraff used to be a top exec. The higher-end Pulse Smartpen also comes with two microphones, along with an application called Paper Replay which records what it hears while you're writing on the school-ruled digitized notebook paper.
First Look: MobileMe promising, but limps out of the gate
In my three plus years of covering Apple, its MobileMe product is probably the most exciting concept, in my opinion.
I've often longed for a viable "push" solution that wouldn't break the bank, and would operate much like Exchange does. In concept, MobileMe does everything I need it to do, pushing information from my PC and Mac to my phone and vice versa.
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