Sprint’s director of global development, Teresa Kellett at WiMAX forum Asia compared the two upcoming 4G standards LTE and WiMAX. Sprint’s representative basically said that WiMAX would succeed because it’s here first and technical capabilities of LTE won’t count for much. She compared LTE and WiMAX to GSM and CDMA, suggesting that GSM ruled the mobile market by virtue of being first to the market. Intel’s Garth Collier, managing director of Intel’s WiMAX division in Asia-Pacific and Japan suggested that WiMAX and LTE could co-exist. He said that he was seeing for the first time a convergence in the cellular industry. We all know that Sprint is backing WiMAX and has already started WiMAX deployment. But the truth is most of the carriers around the world are going for LTE. Sprint is the third largest carrier in US, the two biggest carriers AT&T and Verizon are both supporting LTE. Consider that the market share ratio remains unchanged, then in US WiMAX will have one customer for every 5 customers LTE based service will get. The story will be same in Europe also as most of the European carriers are planning to support LTE by 2009. WiMAX is a good technology for long distance wireless Internet coverage but for Voice LTE superior. If you just consider speed LTE can deliver 100Mbps compared to around 10Mbps by WiMAX making it better for Internet also. Garth Freeman, CEO of the Buzz Broadband, the first WiMAX provider in Australia described an inability to get a signal inside a structure just 400 meters from the base station, and latency up to 1000 milliseconds making the service unusable for VoIP let alone voice calls. I think in its present incarnation WiMAX might become CDMA of the future but definitely not GSM of the future.
[Via Phonemag]

In last week of March, Apple started seeding Mac OS X 10.5.3 beta to the developers. This Friday Apple seeded the latest beta version of Mac OS X 10.5.3 (9d19) to the developers. The latest version includes 31 new bug fixes affecting Airport, Back to My Mac, Spaces, Time Machine and many other features. Actually Spaces has been behaving weirdly on both of my laptops since 10.5.2 update, I hope they fix it soon, as it is one feature of Leopard that I have used the most. It is believed that Mac OS X 10.5.3 we be released next month as a free update to existing Mac OS X 10.5 users.

At RSA 2008 conference in San Francisco, Microsoft’s David Cross a product unit manager admitted that the User Account Control (UAC) was designed deliberately “to annoy users”.  He said that the Vista’s User Account Control scheme was built to discourage users from running as an administrator on their computers, which in case of attack can grant hackers deeper access to the system. “We needed to change the ecosystem, and we needed a heavy hammer to do it,” said Cross. It is really surprising that to change a users habit you have to first annoy them, Vista is for Humans right. Vista users are Microsoft customers and normally you try to please customers not annoy them. Giving direct access to administrator account was Microsoft’s mistake and customers have to suffer for that. Mac OS X has root account that is similar to administrator account on Vista but by default no user gets root access, you cannot setup a root account while normal setup of a new computer. The same is true for Unix and Linux, root account are not same as user accounts. Cross also rejects the notion that the users are shutting off UAC, citing Microsoft statistics that 88 percent of Vista users keep it active. The truth is most people don’t even know that they can shut off the UAC. I asked few of my friends who use Vista, and out of 14 only 3 knew that they could shut off UAC that’s just 21%. If you take any desktop operating system except Linux only around 10 to15% are advanced users and when you design a feature that will affect 100% of the users you don’t just consider 10 to 15% advanced users only.

Nokia has been developing an iPhone competitor since the iPhone was first announced in January 2007 and Nokia showed a photo of the Phone code-named the “tube” at the Evans Data Develop Conference in Redwood City. According to Industry analysts, while the touchscreen is bound to look good, its operating system could disappoint. "The iPhone had a seismic impact on the industry," said Ben Wood, an analyst at U.K. telecoms consultancy CSS Insight. "From the day it was released, every other phone out there became disappointing," he said. "Unless Nokia's product is amazingly good, they'd better not come out with anything." When the iPhone was announced in January 2007 many in the blogosphere complained about its shortcomings like no physical Keypad, non-replaceable battery and no 3G support before even using it. But once it was released in June, it becomes the golden standard for mobile devices and the reason behind the success is its operating system and user interface. "Apple has set the bar so high that any competing device will almost inevitably fail at its first attempt," CSS Insight's Wood said.
[Via Market Watch]

NVIDIA has launched another attack on Intel and disclosed a plan to create a sub-$45 processor platform that NVIDIA is calling “The World’s Most Affordable Vista Premium PC”. The Platform is based on VIA’s Isaiah processor and integrated NVIDIA graphics chipset. According to NVIDIA their new platform will outperform Intel Celeron based computers by a factor of six. The NVIDIA’s proposed combination will perform 36GFLOPS versus Intel’s 6.4GFLOPS. The platform will support Vista Premium, Blu-ray and DirectX10 that are not supported by Intel’s Celeron based platforms. NVIDIA’s proposed platform looks very good but the main question is when will it be released? Intel has already said that its next generation of integrated graphics chipset will have 10X the performance and the 45nm based Celeron update is around the corner. I think NVIDIA needs to hurry-up.

In a paper published by Stuart Parkin and colleagues at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, they describe memory that is faster, more reliable and more efficient than a hard drive or Flash memory. The reading speed of the new memory will be 100,000 times faster than flash memory and it can store 100 times more data of data. The memory is based on metal spintronics and like flash there will be no moving part. The two main benefit of the new memory technology over flash is it never wears out and it will be cheaper to manufacture. But you won’t be seeing a 1TB iPod Nano soon as it will take at least 6 years before storage solutions based on this memory will come to market. The video gives more detailed information about the concept and how the memory works.
[Via BBC]

Gizmodo has posted details about upcoming Thinkpad line-up for 2008. The new X-series will have three new laptops 12” X200, 14” X400 and 15” X500. All the X-series laptop will follow the design philosophy of X300 and will be ultra thin and lightweight. The X-series will be launched around September. The entry-level R-series will be refreshed in July and will include R400 a 14” laptop that will weigh 5.1 pounds and R500 a 15” laptop that will weigh around 6.4 pounds. The business workhorse T-series will get 256 or 512MB ATI’s HD3650 graphics card that can be turned off to conserve battery life. The 14” T400 will be 4.3 pound and the 15” T500 will be 5.8 pounds. The T-series will ship on June 3rd 2008. The completely new W-series will be a desktop replacement laptop. The W900 will be a 15” laptop with ATI’s HD3650 graphics card. Lenovo is also working on a 17” laptop that will be launched in future. All the laptops will use 45nm Penryn processors with 6MB of L2 cache. On many notebooks Lenovo will give options of Blu-ray drive, Turbo Memory, LED Backlighting, GPS, WiMax and Wireless USB. I am just wondering will there be any color options or all the laptops will come in ThinkPad Black only?

The upcoming PS3 firmware 2.30 will add support for DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio. Sony has also confirmed that they will be adding DTS-HD support. Digital Theater System (DTS) is a multichannel, digital surround sound format that can deliver 24.5 Mbps of sound in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio format or 6 Mbps in compressed DTS-HD High Resolution format. The Blu-Ray officially supports the DTS-HD format and more than 100 Blu-Ray movies already support these format. It is believed that Sony will release the Firmware 2.30 when the PlayStation Store upgrade is finished mostly around 15th April.

Stuff.tv is reporting that Nike+ will be extended to iPhone and iPod Touch. It will also get support for WiFi and 3G to let you update your training log without needing to physically attach the device to the computer. The 3G capability will come in handy when using the new Nike+ Coach feature that will be released today. Nike+ will be adding gym Compatibility and extra downloadable audio feedback. All the above features will make the combination of Nike+ and the iPod/iPhone your personal trainer.
[Image via Engadget]

One of the best Bluetooth headset for mobile phones is Aliph Jawbone and the second generation of the headset has made an appearance via the FCC. The Jawbone 2 is slimmer, but it will retain the “Noise Shield” and “Voice Activity Sensor”, two features that made the original Jawbone an excellent headset. Aliph has also decreased the size of the charging cable and the charger itself. The headset will still come with an earloop and various sizes of earbuds for better fitting.  Overall the Jawbone design hasn’t changed much and that’s a very good thing.

Before iPhone was released it was rumored that Apple will launch it on Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). A 10th October 2006 patent filing by Apple shows that it had prepared an alternative model that would have seen the iPhone sold contract free on its own roaming network. Under the proposed model, each iPhone with a stored network address would be in constant communication with an iTunes-like mobile virtual network operator server, feeding the server real-time information about its geographic location. In return, the server would query its database of participating wireless networks within that region, and then select a carrier for the iPhone based upon predetermined rates from those carriers for that region. To get more information about the Patent visit AppleInsider.

AT&T has launched a pilot program in twelve stores and equips each store with Microsoft’s Surface touchscreen tables. AT&T has released a preview video of the Surface table to show us how it looks and works in their store. Surface uses multitouch technology to give information about the coverage, price, cellphone specs, comparison charts and suggest accessories for the handset placed upon it. In future, AT&T will add features like wireless content (contact, images, music and other files) transfer from your old phone to the new phone just by placing the two handsets on the Surface table. The pilot program started on 7th April in New York City, Atlanta, San Antonio and San Francisco.

Apple Files a patent application for technique to improve multi-party communication environment in a conference call. According to the application participants on conference calls can be given virtual position to improve clarity. Apple said in the filing "To assist the user of the device in determining and distinguishing the different participants in the multi-party call, directional audio processing can be utilized so that the different sources of audio for the call can be directionally placed in a particular location with respect to the headset. As a result, the user of the device hears the other participants in the multi-party call as sound sources originating from different locations. " Apple also added that the positions of the participants is automatic, either based on the participants position geographically or in the order at which the participants joined the multi party call.
[Via AppleInsider]

Asus today announced the newest member of their desktop family, Essentio CS5100 Desktop PC. Asus claims it’s “ The world’s smallest Desktop PC equipped with a fully embedded discrete graphic card.” If you just look two years back the first generation of Mac mini that were at least one third smaller than the CS5110 came with discrete graphic card. In 2008 this is definitely the smallest desktop with discrete graphic card. The CS5110 measures 7.9” x 11.4” x 3.1” and weighs 7.5 pounds. The desktop supports Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual Core and Celeron D processors. The Essentio comes with 3.5” hard drive, up to 4GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8600 M GT with 256MB memory, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth and DVD writer or Blu-ray drive. Asus has gave no launch date or price for the desktop.

Nikon today announced three new cameras S52, S52C and P80. The P80 is a 10.1-megapixel ultra zoom camera with 18x optical zoom and offers a Sport Continuous Mode. The camera can take up to 30 shots in a row at speeds between 4 and 13 frames per second. It supports up to ISO 6400 and comes with optical image stabilization. The P80 will be available by end of this month for $400. WiFi is the only difference between S52 and S52C other wise both the cameras are identical. Both the compact models have 9-megapixel sensor, 3X optical zoom, 3” LCD and sensitivity up to ISO 3200. The S52 will cost $250 and the WiFi equipped S52C will cost $280, both the cameras will ship in May.

Cnet is reporting that Australian computer manufacturer Pioneer Computers is marketing a notebook based on Intel’s Centrino 2 platform and new ATI graphics.  The processor specifications for Pioneer DreamBook Style 9800 laptop are Intel Core 2 Duo Centrino 2 processors. The TDP for the processor is listed at 25 watts and the front side bus is 1066MHz. There is no processor in present Intel line-up for laptops that has a 1066MHz FSB or TDP rating of 25 watts. The upcoming Montevina platform based on Penryn technology will have processors with 1066MHz FSB and 25 watts TDP. The mobile Centrino 2 platform will be released in June but that is not stopping pioneer computers to jump the gun.

The BRAVIA E4000 is the sexiest TV I have seen. The TV has a unique picture frame design and comes with four blend-in frame colors to suit your décor. The four frame colors are Midnight sky, Aluminium, Pearly White, Dark Walnut. The TV will have three screen sizes, the 32” and 42” will support full HD and the 26” will support up to 1080i. The E4000 series has picture Frame Mode displaying your favorite image on the screen. The E4000 is also the most energy efficient Sony TV yet, using just 0.19W in standby mode. The TV uses x.v.Colour technology to display more lifelike colors. The E4000 has 10-bit LCD panel, Bravia Engine 2 processing and 3 HDMI. Sony has yet not announced the release date or price.
[Via Sony]

Toshiba has added A, M, P and U series to its notebook line-up.  The A series has A300 that comes with 15.4” HD screen, Intel or AMD processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD3650 with up to 512MB memory and HDMI port. The A300 also has Sleep and Charge USB port, webcam with face recognition, LED lit Feather-touch multimedia keys, Harman Kardon Speakers and Dolby audio profile. The base price starts at $949, but if you want all the above features and a decent processor you will cross at least $1300.

The second laptop in the line-up M300 is a 14.1” laptop with almost same features as the A300. However M300 comes with Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors and has integrated graphics.

There is only one difference between feature set of the 17” P300 and 15” A300 that is Graphics card. You get two options, either ATI Mobility Radeon HD3470 with dedicated graphics card or ATI Radeon X1250 with shared graphics memory.

The last in the line-up is U300 a 13.3” notebook with flush mounted touchpad. The U300 comes with Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors only. The laptop has finger print scanner and face detection for security. Feature-wise the Laptop matches with the A300 except for the integrated graphics. The base price of all the four laptops starts at $949 and depending on feature set you select it goes up.
[Via Toshiba]

According to TG daily’s industry sources Apple will launch 3G iPhone at WWDC 2008. The starting price will remain same $399, but there might be three different configurations. There will be a 8GB model for $399 and a 16GB model for $499. There might be a third model with 32GB memory for $599. The casing of the phone will also be changed. The phone will be thinner by 2.5mm making it just 9.1mm (0.35”) thick. The accelerometer will be tuned a bit to improve its functionality. As we have seen in iPhone OS 2.0 beta, there will be no change in the operating system or the user interface. In another iPhone related news Engadget has posted screen shots of the search feature added to the contacts in iPhone firmware 2.0 beta. The search bar is at the top of the contacts list. I think we will see the public release of both the 3G iPhone and the iPhone firmware 2.0 on the same day.

Built on Adobe Air Technology, the new Adobe Media Player 1.0 plays Flash and H.264 videos. Media Player is a desktop media application that will provide video playback of downloaded video or streaming video content. It lets you subscribe to TV shows, Video podcast and watch them on demand. Most of the TV shows will only be available when you are online, even though it’s a desktop application. Adobe Media player is more like Joost, the free online TV application, where you download and install the client program to your computer and use it to watch TV shows online. The application supports up to 1080p resolution and requires a 2.33 GHz Pentium 4 with 1GB RAM for Windows. The Mac version requires 1.8GHz G5, 1GB RAM and Mac OS X 10.4.9. If you want to watch HD stuff, you will at least need 2GHz Core Duo processor and more than 1GB RAM. The problem with the Adobe Media Player is that it’s very resource hungry just like the Flash player. I tried the media player on a 2GHz Core 2 Duo Macbook with 2GB RAM and the application was using around 50% to 70% of the processing power. No other media application uses that much CPU for playing a SD video. The Adobe Media Player does not bring anything new to the table. If I wanted to watch streaming TV shows, there are already other sites such as Hulu that provide online TV entertainment. Also, being an iTunes fan, I'm more than happy with the way iTunes manages my video podcast library. So that being said, with the existing presence of online sites such as Hulu and podcast pioneer iTunes, there is not much to be excited about Adobe's new offering.

Toshiba has released 10 new LCD TVs in the REGZA line. They range in size from 32” to 52” and will cost from $1560 up to $5850. The main feature on these LCD TVs is number of ports. Some of the ports present on the TV are 4 HDMI, 3 Ethernet, 2 USB, one Firewire, multi-card reader, Bluetooth, 300GB hard drive and DLNA support. The ZH500 series will have 52” and 46” 120Hz models. The RH500 will have three models 32”, 37”and 42”. The ZV500 will have 42” and 37” models. The least expensive CV500 series will have three models of 32”, 37” and 42”. All the models will be released by June and will have DVR software to record on the 300GB hard drive.
[Via Slashgear]

Sony has released their Dual Shock 3 controller for PS3. The Dual Shock 3 controller is heavier than the old Sixaxis controller and has rumbles, otherwise there is no difference in the two controllers. According to Arstechnica the Dual Shock 3 doesn’t fell like an upgrade as much as it feels like the controller that’s supposed to be included with the PS3 and I totally agree with them.

In-stat is reporting that by 2012, digital music sales will represent 40% of all music sales worldwide. Digital sales have gone from 6% in 2006 to 10% in 2007. Factors influencing the growth are broadband expansion, increases demand for single-track download and expanding online music catalogues. According to In-Stat, the obstacles for Digital downloads are Piracy, interoperability between services and weak consumer demand for subscription-based services. In-stat found 48% increase in online music sales revenue in 2007 compared to 2006. If you consider Apple’s iTunes Music store, the music sales have doubled every year for past three years. In less than three years iTunes has gone from 5% market share to more than 19% market share in total music sales in US. Making it the number one music reseller in US. The online Music sales will definitely rise with increase in DRM free music. You can get more information about In-Stat research on their website.

Cost wise AMD’s Phenom X4 9850 is a good processor, but overall it’s no match for Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q9300. Extreme Tech performed a Quad Core showdown between AMD’s 9850 and Intel’s Q9300, in almost every test Intel came on top. Definitely X4 9850 is $60 cheaper than the Q9300, but spending few extra dollars will definitely get you a better system.  The other factor in favor of Intel is Overclocking. You can overclock Q9300 to 3GHz very easily but overclocking X4 9850 above 2.8GHz will require some skills. The Phenom X4 9850 is currently AMD’s fastest chip and it can’t even match the performance of mid-level Q9300. If you are in market for a Budget Quad Core processor Intel will be a safe bet right now.

Seeing the success of Asus’s Eee PC almost all the computer manufacturers have decided to jump on the bandwagon. The number two computer manufacturer Dell also wants to join race and hence plans to launch an 8.9” laptop in June for less than $499. Taiwan’s Compal Electronics revealed the news about the 8.9” Dell laptop. Michael Dell said at a Tel Aviv news conference, “we will introduce a similar laptop, we do see opportunities for very interesting products that are smaller and lighter and address the more mobile users in a very cost-effective way.”

Apple has seeded new version of the iPhone OS 2.0 beta for developers. The update fixes number of issues and adds new features. The features added are centered on Exchange support and include additional abilities of receiving and accepting meeting invitations, searching for contacts in the global address list, auto complete email address in the global address list, and setting up an exchange account using auto discovery. ZiPhone has also found code that mentions “SGOLD3”, that might refer to Infineon’s PMB8878 chip. The S-GOLD3H is a 3G chip that supports 7.2Mbps HSDPA connection, WLAN, A-GPS, Bluetooth, Video acceleration, media playback and up to 5-megapixel camera. One more sign pointing towards the upcoming 3G iPhone. The iPhone OS 2.0 will be released in June and we will mostly see the 3G iPhone by then.

Nokia has been working on a touchscreen phone since the iPhone was first introduced last year. Symbian Freak is reporting that the phone is real and will be released in first quarter of 2009. It will be the first touchscreen phone based on 5th generation S60 Platform and will be called “Tube”. The Tube will have a 3” touchscreen with 16:9 aspect ratio that will not support multitouch, but would have tactile feedback. According to Symbian-freak the camera on the phone is way better than the one that we can find on present generation iPhone. The connectivity options will include Quad-band GSM, HSDPA, UMTS, EDGE, GPRS, uPnP, GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth. If the information provided by Symbian freak is true the phone will have almost same dimensions as that of the iPhone, but will be almost twice as thick as the iPhone (about 0.30” thicker then iPhone).

IBM at a press event in San Francisco unveiled a Power6 based highest-end server – the Power 595. The Power 595 uses up to eight four socket boards and each socket can use either 4.2GHz or 5GHz Dual-core Power6 Chips, resulting in a massive 32 processors in each box. The server supports up to 4TB of DDR2 memory. IBM said that their Power 595 server would outperform Sun’s SPARC servers and HP’s Itanium servers by a factor of 2x to 3x. The servers will be released on May 6th. IBM also released their Power 575 servers that can fit up to 14 2U boards with 16 4.7GHz processors per board. IBM calls the system supercomputing machine. The 575 server uses water-cooling reducing typical data center energy consumption by 40% when compared to air-cooled 575s. IBM has benchmarked a single 575 board at 600 GFlops that is 5 times the performance of older 575 systems. IBM also refreshed 570 servers and added a “hot node” feature that lets customers add additional systems to an already running box for extra performance and storage. All the new servers will be available in May and run on both UNIX and Linux.

Samsung today announced their new slider phone M470, it’s the first device to support HSUPA resulting in Upload speeds of 2Mbps. HSUPA is part of High Speed packet Access that would be support by Long Term Evolution (LTE) Technology. It is estimated that by 2010 more then 610 million handsets will support HSUPA. The M470 will have WiFi, Bluetooth, 2-megapixel camera and push e-mail support. It will be released in Korea for around $600.

Walt Mossberg had mentioned, during a talk about broadband penetration and online video that the 3G iPhone will be released with in 60 days. But Mossberg clarified that he doesn’t actually know whether or not a 3G iPhone is coming in 60 days. Mossberg said to SAI “ if I know when this date was, why would I announce it in middle of a sentence at the Finnish embassy, rather than report it in The Wall Street Journal?” So Uncle Walt has no information about 3G-iPhone release date, but all the signs are pointing towards 3G iPhone release with in 60 days.

Amazon has a habit of announcing a product even before it’s officially released and it’s a good habit. Continuing with the tradition Amazon has put placeholder pages for the HP 2133 Mini-Note PC. Almost all the information is available on the Amazon about the HP 2133 except price. But don’t worry CompSource has released that information also. There will be four models of HP 2133 and all of them will have Via C7-M processor, 8.9” screen, web-cam, and WiFi a/b/g. Two models will come with SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 OS and two models will come with Windows Vista. The SuSE Linux based 1.0GHz Mini-Note will have 4GB flash memory, 512MB DDR2 RAM, 3 cell Li-Ion battery and will cost around $500. The 1.2GHz Mini-Note with SuSE Linux will have 120GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, 3 cell Li-Ion battery and will be priced $550. The 1.2GHz model with Vista Home Basic will have same configuration but will add $50 to the cost raising the total cost to $600. The high-end 1.6GHz model with Vista Business will have 120GB hard drive, 2GB RAM, 6 Cell Li-Ion Battery, Bluetooth and will be priced $750. Right now the HP 2133 Mini-Note is not available on both the website but it will be there soon.

LG is known for the sexy looks of their mobile phones and the new, yet to be named Black Label series phone is no different. The gorgeous new phone is not just about looks; it has a 5-megapixel camera in super slim carbon fiber body. Making it the slimmest 5-megapixel camera phone. The Slider phone uses a tempered glass touchscreen for control. LG has not released much information about the phone but it will definitely support 3G networks.
[Via Engadget]

HTC has sent out invites for an event on May 6th 2008 in London. The tag line for the event is “Witness the next wave of HTC Innovation.” My guess is that the next wave of HTC Innovation will be based on Google’s Android platform and the first phone will be HTC Dream that has been making rounds on the blogosphere for past few months. HTC had promised last year that they would release a Android based phone by mid of 2008 and May 6th will be a perfect date to announce, as it will be one month before Apple releases iPhone software 2.0 and 3G iPhone in June.

Apple has not changed the basic design and construction of its Pro notebooks since 2003 and the entry level Macbook was also released almost 2 years back. AppleInsider is reporting that both the notebooks will have major design changes soon. The 13” Macbook will use more eco-friendly materials such as aluminum and stainless steel. Macbook Pro will borrow design cues from aluminum iMac and use matte black on portions of the casing. Both the notebooks will get oversized trackpads and backlit keyboard like the Macbook Air. Apple will also try to trim the thickness as well as the weight of both the notebooks.  It is believed that Apple will release the new laptops in third quarter after Intel releases the second generation of mobile Penryn processors in June.

Microsoft had sent a letter to Yahoo, threatening to start a proxy contest to elect new board, if Yahoo doesn’t surrender to Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid. Yahoo today said that it’s not opposed to some sort of financial deal, but the current offer is too low. Yahoo’s CEO Yang pointed to Yahoo’s three-year financial plan, its new AMP advertising management platform and the fact that the company recently reaffirmed its first quarter and year end outlook as reasons they believe the Microsoft bid was low. Yahoo characterized Ballmer’s letter as counterproductive and inconsistent with Microsoft’s stated objective of a friendly transaction. Yahoo added that it was open to a transaction from any potential buyer, including Microsoft, but that it would reject anything below what it considers “full value”. Yahoo also said that Microsoft is trying to mischaracterize the nature of discussions that took place between the two companies in which Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer was also present. As I wrote in my previous post its Microsoft that needed Yahoo to increase their online presence. Microsoft knows that if they don’t pressurize Yahoo they might have to pay more then $50 billion to get Yahoo. So in short Microsoft is playing dirty to get Yahoo for cheap.

Intel at its Developer Forum in Shanghai announced details about its upcoming processor line-up, platforms and solid-state drives. Intel released details about it new Atom CPU line-up that is basically designed to use very less power and have very low Thermal Design Power (TDP). The first processor in the line-up Atom Z500 will have 800MHz clock speed, 400MHz FSB, 160mW Average power requirement, 0.65W TDP and will cost $45. This processor is aimed at mobile Internet devices with screen sizes of about 5-inch. The second Atom processor Z510 will have same FSB but increased clock speed (1100MHz), increased power requirement (220mW) and increased TDP (2W). The Z510 will be available for $45.  The Z520 and Z530 will have same FSB of 533MHz, same Power requirement of 220mW and same TDP of 2W, but will have 1333MHz and 1600MHz clock speed respectively. The Z520 will cost $65 and the Z530 will be priced for $95. The last processor on the list Z540 has the same FSB and power requirement as the Z530, but will have higher TDP of 2.4W, higher clock speed of 1860MHz and will cost $160. The last four Atom processors are aimed for UMPC and small form factor PCs like Eee PC. According to Intel the Atom processor will provide performance on par or higher than the Pentium M processor and will use less than 1/10 the power required by those processors. You should start seeing computer based on these processors by summer of 2008.

Intel also gave details about Moorestown architecture, the successor to Silverthorne architecture used in today’s Atom processors. The Moorestown will have a new processor (Lincroft), as well as a new system controller hub called Langwell. The Lincroft processor will add video hardware directly on the main processor resulting in improved visual performance and reducing the overall size of the complete package to less than the size of a US quarter. With the Moorestown, Intel will also release a unified wireless module know as Evans Peak. It will merge Bluetooth, GPS, WiFi and WiMax on a single chip. The smaller size will shrink the overall size of Mobile Internet Devices and micro notebooks.

Intel also demonstrated 3.2Ghz Quad-core processor based on Nehalem processor technology. The Nehalem technology is the successor to today’s Core architecture and is the fastest x86 chip. Intel has added Hyperthreading support allowing each of the four cores to run as many as two instruction threads at a time allowing it to handle work of eight cores. The Nehalem based processors will use QuickPath interconnect system that talks directly to each component resulting in faster data transfer between components. Nehalem will also have an on-die memory controller that will eliminate the need for a large Level 2 cache, with each core only having 256KB of Level 2 cache and a 8MB Level 3 cache. The processor based on Nehalem technology will ship in late 2008.

Intel previewed the Calpella notebook platform that will be successor to the company’s still unreleased Centrino-2 platform. The Calpella platform will use upcoming Nehalem processor based on 32nm technology. Calpella will use a revolutionary power management technology that will result in better battery life. Intel will also add new graphics engine that will improve overall visual experience. Calpella platform will be released in third quarter of 2009. Intel also revealed SSD drives that were previously codenamed “Rocket”. The drives will be available in 1.8” and 2.5” sizes, and in capacities ranging from 32GB to 160GB. According to Intel the drives will be twice as fast as present SSD drives. Each drive is ruggedized and tested against forces up to 1500G. The drives will be available in June and Intel has given no details about pricing.

For past few days, there was a rumor that Microsoft will reconsider its $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo. In a move that is totally opposite, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has sent a letter to threaten Yahoo’s board of directors. The quote in the letter that sums the whole story:

“If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo! Board.”

Basically, if Yahoo doesn’t oblige, Microsoft will kidnap Yahoo’s shareholders and take the company as ransom. The reason why I think Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has sent the letter to Yahoo board is because he is also not sure whether initiating a proxy contest would be a good idea or not. Microsoft further adds, “if is unfortunate that by choosing not to enter into substantive negotiations with us, you have failed to give due consideration to a transaction that has tremendous benefits for Yahoo!’s shareholders and employees.” Microsoft will gain more from this deal than Yahoo because even though Microsoft has tried very hard for the past few years to increase their online presence, they have failed badly. Yahoo is the second in search and ads revenue, if Yahoo merges with Microsoft that would make Microsoft number two behind Google. As for Yahoo, many of its employees will loose their job after merger. Microsoft will try to make Yahoo more profitable as it has paid $44.6 billion. Right now, it looks like the deal would benefit Microsoft more than Yahoo. Let’s wait and see what will happen in the next three weeks.