If you're like us, you've bopped along happily once or twice to USB.org's funky little wireless promo video, hoping that someday the wire-free utopia it promises could become a reality. Well now Lenovo and Dell have put us one step closer to the prize with two new laptops.
Engadget.com story

NEW YORK - Chip designer Alereon Inc. said Monday it is releasing the first chip that uses a frequency band that is legal all over the world for wireless USB, a technology with the potential to cut the tangle of cables surrounding computers.

»www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7448

OCZ today announced it has acquired American supplier of power supply units PC Power & Cooling. Orginally founded in 1985, PC Power & Cooling has been a frontrunner in ultra high-performance power supplies and cooling solutions.

You can’t tell me you haven’t asked this question yourself: Why exactly is Intel coming along right now with an integrated memory controller idea? And why is it that Intel now plans to put graphics capability into the CPU. Does AMD innovate and Intel has begun to follow? Here’s some food for thought.

From IT Wire:

"A number type of nano-scale architecture developed in the research labs of Hewlett-Packard could beat Moore's Law and advance the progress of microprocessor development three generations in one hit. The new architecture uses a design technique that will enable chip makers to pack eight times as many transistors as is currently possible on a standard 45nm field programmable gate array (FPGA) chip."

»www.itwire.com.au/content/view/8631/53/

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE:AMD - news) on Monday launched a line of computer processors that use less power, saying its adoption of new manufacturing techniques will help it compete with rival Intel Corp.

Full story:
»news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061205/tc_nm/amd_dc_1

By Tony Smith
29th November 2006 10:32 GMT


AMD will today announce its Quad FX platform, formerly codenamed '4x4', it has been claimed. The technology is built out of Nvidia's nForce 680a SLI chipset and AMD's new Athlon 64 FX-70 series of dual-core processors.

According to a report on Japanese-language site PCWatch, there are the FX-70s: the FX-70, FX-72 and FX-74, clocked at 2.6GHz, 2.8GHz and 3.0GHz, respectively.


Link: »www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/29···uad_fx/
Note: The Japanese website with the report is linked above via Google Language tools for translation into English.

This Thursday marks the 35th anniversary of the public announcement of the 4004, the world's first microprocessor.

A package of three chips, the 4004 could calculate numbers from a program, a task that until then had required larger, bulkier computers.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov 14, 2006 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Intel Corporation today kicked off the computer industry's multi-core PC era by delivering four computing "brains" inside a single microprocessor with the introduction of the Quad-Core Intel(R) Xeon(R) 5300 and Intel Core(TM) 2 Extreme quad-core processor families. These products deliver immense speed and responsiveness for general purpose servers and workstations and for digital media creation, high-end gaming and other market segments that crave absolute performance.

For the past two years Advanced Micro Devices has made Intel, one of the world's most prominent companies, look bad. Better products and better timing have brought AMD significant market share and prominent new customers like Dell. But Intel is on the comeback with new processor designs better suited for the power-efficient multicore era, and it will beat AMD to the quad-core punch by using a design strategy that makes purists scoff but accountants happy.

Continues here

LONDON--(MARKET WIRE)--Oct 26, 2006 -- At the BroadGroup Power and Cooling Summit here today, IBM researchers presented an innovative approach for improving the cooling of computer chips, an increasingly urgent need given the large amount of heat released by today's more powerful processors and the additional energy required for removing that heat.

The technique, called "high thermal conductivity interface technology," allows a twofold improvement in heat removal over current methods. This paves the way for continued development of creative electronic products through the use of more powerful chips without complex and costly systems simply to cool them.

Full story here!

Rumors of Intel Corp. purchasing graphic chip giant Nvidia Corp.

update SAN FRANCISCO--Intel announced two moves on Wednesday that will mean other chipmakers can tightly connect their own processors to Intel's.

In one step, the chipmaker will let two companies, Xilinx and Altera, plug their special-purpose chips into the front-side bus that Intel currently uses to connect its own processors to other processors, memory and all other computing subsystems.

In a second step, code-named "Geneseo," it will improve the ubiquitous PCI technology to accommodate a wide variety of accelerator chips, Pat Gelsinger, general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, said in a speech at the Intel Developer Forum here. IBM and Intel codeveloped Geneseo.

Continues here

A federal judge has dismissed a large portion of Advanced Micro Devices' antitrust lawsuit against Intel, saying that U.S. law does not cover many of AMD's claims.

Fri Aug 18, 12:45 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO - Dell Inc.'s announcement that it will expand its use of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. microprocessors is another win for the smaller chip maker against larger rival Intel Corp.

Dell said Thursday it would begin using AMD's chips in a new line of servers and desktop PCs as early as next month. The announcement came four months after Dell ended a long-standing exclusive relationship with Intel and agreed to start using AMD processors in some servers.

Full Story

TAIWAN--Following its recent partnership with Advanced Micro Devices to put the latter's chip in its server product line, Dell Computer confirmed this week that it will launch AMD-based laptops as early as October. The move could deal another blow to rival Intel.

»www.zdnetasia.com/news/hardware/···3,00.htm

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - IBM (NYSE:IBM), the world's largest technology services company, on Tuesday is announcing new server computers giving businesses access to computing power typically used by universities and large corporations.

The five systems, set to be unveiled at a New York briefing on Tuesday, use microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

July 27, 2006

For Lenovo Group customers, choosing a processor for a business desktop is about to become a two-horse race.

The PC maker in the second week of August will become the first top-tier manufacturer to offer an AMD processor-based desktop to large businesses in the United States, sources familiar with the company's plans said.

More: »www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,19···2406EPW3

Best Buy will have Core 2 Duo systems from Velocity Micro available in 200 stores throughout the continent on Aug. 8, the first day Intel is allowing PC companies to start shipping systems.

»news.com.com/Best+Buy+eyes+early···15.html

»today.reuters.com/stocks/QuoteCo···&rpc=66

Intel Israel was responsible for the design of the Pentium M line, the Core Duo, and the upcoming mobile Core 2 Duo (Merom). Other tech companies with labs in Israel include HP and IBM.

»www.science.co.il/Electronics-Co···p?s=semi