News for Monday, 7 May 2007

During the last IDF, Intel unveiled a new ultra-portable platform named Menlow and aiming to provide sub-notebook models in 2008 with 6 hours battery lifetime while being powered by up to 2GHz CPUs.
In 2009, with the next evolution, aka Moorestown, Intel wants to extend sub-notebook battery lifetime to 24 hours! To reach such power saving, Intel plans to combine the multi-core CPU, GPU and memory on a single chip. With the use of DDR3 and SSD drives, other component in the sub-notebook can also be power-friendly. By the end of the decade, Intel plans to improve the current performance/watt up to 3 fold.
If Intel officially communicates about its goal to develop technologies to enhance battery lifetime for sub-notebooks, we should expect Apple to enter this market. Not only for filling the gap in the Apple-branded notebook offer, but also for business reason as mobile computers represent today 50% of the sales, and it is expected to keep growing in the coming years. For many users, their notebook is also their main computer, and the time of having a notebook for being on the move and a desktop computer at home is over with the increased performance of mobile hardware solutions, while providing increased battery lifetime.

As we already reported it lqst Friday, the Danish consumer Association has filed claims against Apple for a design defect affecting iBook G4 and asking Cupertino to acknowledge the problem and launch a free exchange program.
Based on the technical report, the defect seems to be only affecting iBook G4 800MHz to 1GHz. After the logic board exchange program for the iBook G3, it seems that the first 2 generations of iBook G4 were also plagued by some manufacturing defect. If Apple can try to avoid a worldwide exchange program, such claims from an EU member will most probably force Apple to launch the exchange program for all EU countries.

If Google is the leading search engine for internet users, its linked advertising system, Google Ad Sense, is also taking over most of the business of advertisement space and revenues on the web. Despite its monopoly on the computer OS market, Microsoft does not like to see another player becoming suddenly strong enough to compete with Redmond's Giant in the IT world.
The rumor of Microsoft taking over Yahoo is not new, and could simply be the cheapest and smartest way for Redmond to strengthen its position in the search engine/internet advertising businesses.
If the WSJ reported last Friday that discussions are far to be so advanced, and might simply reveal plans for both companies to team up; it remains clear that Google monopoly and power start pushing other players in the field to find way to collaborate to resist.

Magma introduced a new peripheral, an External PCI Express entitled Magma ExpressBox. Taking advantage of the Express Card slot, it allows notebook users to attach a "desktop-only" PCI Express (PCI-E) card to a laptop.

While Magma is strongly advertising its product:

For example, a user can turn a typical, middle-of-the-road laptop into a powerful gaming, scientific computer or audio and video editing workstation by simply adding the right PCI Express card to ExpressBox1 then connecting to a laptop.
No latency, 2000Mbps, Faster than USB and Firewire
Based on new PCI Express® technology, ExpressBox1 provides a no latency connectivity solution with a theoretical maximum throughput of 2000Mbps (or 250 MegaBytes per second) each direction... That's 2.5 times faster than Firewire 800 and 4.1 times the speed of USB 2.0!

it remains to be proven that such external devices can indeed massively speed up tasks.
This announcement is similar to the one made by ASUS last January even though it was mostly dedicated to external graphic cards. The ASUS device was already not cheap with its integrated GPU, US$600, but the Magma ExpressBox is even more expensive: 7300 to 750 US$ depending on the model, and provided as such (meaning empty). In addition, one will not really be able to install a powerful GPU inside due to power limitations as stated on Magma website:

Attention Gamers and GPU Gurus! Magma ExpressBox1 is designed for "single-width" video cards that require 55 watts or less. "Double-wide" GPUs that require auxiliary power will be compatible with the next generation Magma ExpressBox to be available later this year.
NOTE: For external graphics under Windows Vista, Magma recommends laptops with ATI graphics technology paired with external ATI graphics.

At the end, one can ask if this product, basically an external PCI Express slot in a case is not simply overpriced, or promising, but not delivering; serious tests need to be done to conclude.

One of our readers in Canada sent us an email originating from Cingular/AT&T and confirming the availability of the iPhone for June while giving specifications of the device it did not provide further technical details.
If the introduction of the iPhone is planned and organized in USA, it remains a completely opened question in Europe. While Pascal Cagni mentioned the introduction for the end of the year, the choice of the carrier remains unclear. As we already reported it, if Apple plans to team up with a single carrier, then it will most probably be Vodafone (UK) or Orange (FR). However, a german mobile phone online shop is advertising the iPhone as part of a T-Mobile subscription offer to be announced!