News for Wednesday, 11 February 2009

The new tendency of the auto industry is to make cars that do not use gasoline; this makes researchers very imaginative. All wish to become the one that will be able to give these cars an autonomy and a power comparable with that delivered by gasoline.
Researchers at the University of Rice decided to try an any new approach in this field. Rather than to seek to store electrons in electrolytes, they decided to trap them behind a barrier. The latter is made up of tiny carbon nanotubes covered with a metal oxide. Each nanotube becomes a nanoscopic electric wire able to convey and to retain the electrons. These electrons could then be released according to the needs in a very fast way, also recharging is fast too.
This type of battery has other advantages, or rather the absence of the disadvantage of the Li-Ion batteries, in particular their propensity to ignite.
The researchers work to still improve the output and the capacity of these batteries. They consider that the industrial passage will not be an obstacle. It is certain that if these batteries are as effective as they announce, we will end up also finding them in our laptops and telephones.

The fabricator of cables Monoprice announces that it will market an adapter mini Displayport to HDMI from March 15.

Thus we will be able soon to connect in all simplicity a Unibody portable with a HD television set , and at a reasonable cost announced to be $14,25.We do not know how the audio will be managed since Apple still does not propose a driver able to pass the sound via its Displayport connectors contrary to the standards of this connector. Their monitor 24" LED conveys the audio via USB.

Apple always lives in the spotlight of the stock exchange and the general public; thus more and more stock analysis companies publish their opinions and join the game of predicting future of Apple. Thus, a new analysis wants Apple to offer an entry-level iPhone this Spring, or at the latest by June. But there is a problem. in theory, this kind of analysis is supposed to envisage in the manner of predicting the weather, the direction that the wind will blow. But if one adds a pinch of rumours and some fragments of information such as the emergence of a iPhone 3.1, you no longer seek the direction of the wind, but try to predict the shape of the boat which will be blown by this wind; and there one plunges in with a rumour that is believed to be more credible because it associated with the word analysis.
But initially the rumours are not like this. A rumour is information not checked and without proof to support it.
But anyway - talk about Apple sells newspapers, and for some this is the most important thing.
PS: since we are speaking about rumours, a member of our forums very strongly thinks that the new iMac and mini Mac will be released on March 3. Note, to announce this every Tuesday and someone will end up being correct :)

With its GeForce 9400M, NVidia released a key product in 2008. As often stated, this is GeForce GPU to which chipset functions have been added, and not like with current Intel solution, a chipset to which one grafts a GPU.

The success of this solution is has been huge and is still popular for high-end notebooks, Apple was the first manufacturer to adopt it for its entire notebook models. However, it might well be the last coup from NVidia for notebooks. Indeed, Intel decided that its future mobile platform, entitled Arrendale, will be dramatically different. The graphical unit will not be associated to the chipset anymore but directly integrated in the CPU, on the same die than the processor.

This design should bring an important improvement to performance levels, simply based on the higher frequency and its closer interaction with the CPU. In this case, the GPU controller would not help and could degrade performance, so it would not be benefic to add a second discrete powerful GPU as it is currently the case in the MacBook Pro.
In such context, NVidia will have only one solution to maintain its position once Intel released Arrendale: associate a higher performance chipset to their high-end GPU in order to maintain a good performance level. But two problems will need to be solved to achieve such goal:
- Obtain license from Intel for the forthcoming architecture, nothing easy as both companies becoming openly competitors have more and more problem for cross-licensing, on the other end it can be criticized for monopoly…
- Release the most powerful GPU able to provide stunning 3D effects, GPGPU performance while controlling power consumption as low as possible, in a dynamic manner, to adapt to the usage of mobile architecture.
Another solution might be found, but NVidia does not have many cards in its hand to compete with the forthcoming Intel Arrendale. AMD and ATI can always deliver an Intel-like solution, but NVidia is alone... At the end, the GF 9400 M chipset might have been the best and last product from NVidia. If you remember just before its introduction some rumors were already indicating that NVidia will stop chipset development (http://www.hardmac.com/news/2008-10-08/#8975)... so at the end it could well be true and have some rational.

SanDisk announced its goal to release the first memory cards based on its X4 technology during the first semester. This technology was acquired in 2006 when SanDisk swallowed M-System and allows production of high density MLC memory chips, storing 4 bits per cell instead of 2 (so doubling the capacity). So, SanDisk might offer a 64 GB SD card, more than enough space to store your photos or videos. Data transfer speed will be similar to those recorded for MLC products, so around 7.8 MB/s. If such speed will be more than enough for most mass consumer electronic devices, it will not be enough not for Pro users. It will also be far too slow to be used in SSD, and one will have to wait for the MLC X3, 3 bits/cell, a technology which could benefit from 32 nm engraving, making higher transfer speed possible.

If one would have predicted that the current economic crisis will send price down, the nit was a big mistake, at least for ASUS.
The company known for its famous EEE PC decided to increase the price of all EEE PC notebook models by 20% in March. The reason is claimed to be linked to the increasing cost of components, production and financial crisis. However, one could also think that ASUS is waving a flag in order to empty stocks whose levels are much higher than expected…