By Fei Lumbania on March 3, 2010
By Fei Lumbania on March 1, 2010
By Nora Terrado
Despite the prevalence of conspiracy theories and climate change skepticism, man-made global warming is a widely accepted fact, and one that most scientists agree upon. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), suggests that the observed increase in global temperatures is very likely due to observed increase in human greenhouse gas concentration.
Green computing, the practice of efficient and ecofriendly IT, is becoming today’s norm. Addressing the need to minimize the environmental impact of computing resources, which accounts to three percent of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, has become even more crucial as computers play increasingly important roles in our daily lives.
Coincidentally, pundits believe that IT itself is the answer to addressing the eco-compliance needs of the remaining 96% to 97% of GHG contributors.
The work has already been started as IT companies the world over tread on the green path. Many corporations are adapting environmentally sustainable ways to conduct their business, with some even going great lengths to accommodate full ecological compliance. Citing a survey, Jose Iglesias of Symantec Corporation writes, “of more than 1,000 large enterprises in 15 countries, nine out of 10 IT organizations see their role in minimizing their company’s environmental footprint as very or extremely significant.”
The high-tech industry, during the 2009 Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, has pledged substantial reduction of its carbon footprint. According to TheDailyGreen.com’s Brian Clark Howard, technology titans Google, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft, Yahoo and Sun Microsystems have all joined with the EPA, the World Wildlife Fund and others to develop an ambitious industry-wide goal of slashing the amount of energy computers consume. The Climate Savers Computing Initiative has the goal of reducing computer energy use by 50% by 2010.
“If there’s follow-through, the scheme is expected to save $5.5 billion in energy costs and cut emissions by 54 million tons a year, the equivalent of 11 million cars or 20 coal-fired power plants,” writes Howard on 5 Signs the Computer Industry is Going Green.
Philippine companies are not far behind the green trend. Across sectors, Filipino organizations have followed, and in some cases, are leading the new green revolution.
In real estate, Ayala Land is developing the country’s foremost eco-sustainable community. Nuvali, located 40 minutes south of Metro Manila, is touted as the country’s largest and most environmentally friendly business district.
One of Nuvali’s first tenants is relationship management service provider, Convergys. Its Nuvali TechnoHub features green architecture and boasts an abundance of trees and shrubbery for better environmental air quality and habitat enhancement.
The energy sector also fronts key players in the sustainability practice. One of the more popular companies in this industry is Solar Electric Company (Solarco), developers of the E-jeepney, which is known as pioneers of home solar system in the Philippines.
On the other hand, ECHOStore leads the retail sector in promoting the use and consumption of environmentfriendly products. Located at Fort Bonifacio, the store doubles as a hub where people can exchange ideas about sustainable living.
From the corporate to the individual level, green computing is slowly being adapted by Filipino users.
Forecasts on green computing point upward as manufacturers take notice of the increasing environmental awareness of consumers, prompting further research and development of earth-friendly products.
A study by the US-based Consumer Electronics Association indicates that more consumers are inclined towards buying “green” electronics, with 89% expecting their next purchase to be “green.”
Cost poses as a huge hurdle for Filipino consumers. However, the practice of green computing and eco-friendliness in general enjoys continually growing support in the country.
In 2009, 15 million Filipinos in 647 cities and towns participated in the hour-long lights off initiative of Earth Hour, a considerable jump from a year earlier which garnered one million participants. The 10-fold jump in the number of participants was attributed to the Filipinos’ increasing awareness of climate change and its effects, according to Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Thanks to the media, particularly the Internet, the global citizenry is becoming more aware of the adverse effects of climate change. With the effective tools of mass communication, it is only an issue of doing away with apathy and adopting genuine concern for Mother Nature that separates us to a greener future.
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By JM Tuazon on February 26, 2010
By Agam Shah
IDG News Service (New York Bureau)
February 26, 2010
NEW YORK - Intel faces challenges in migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7, including application incompatibility and system readiness, the company said on Wednesday.
Intel worked with Microsoft to develop Windows 7 into a stable operating system, but there is still a lot of heavy lifting involved before migrating PCs to the new OS inside Intel’s environment, wrote Intel staff engineer Roy Ubry in a blog entry. Challenges include issues related to backward application compatibility, Web browser support, 64-bit computing and privacy controls.
“It means that a significant amount of work needs to be invested to prepare for Windows 7 application readiness,” Ubry wrote.
Intel last year announced it would migrate from the nine-year-old Windows XP OS to Windows 7 OS, skipping Vista, which was released in 2007. Now the company is starting its transition to Windows 7.
One of the biggest issues involves migrating applications that can run natively on Windows XP to Windows 7. The move from Windows XP systems to 64-bit computing in Windows 7 presents an application compatibility challenge while migrating PCs, Ubry wrote.
Windows 7 no longer supports 16-bit programs, and Intel still has many legacy applications that will require the company to support older operating systems.
“Initially, you would think this would not be a big concern; 32 bit computing has been around for many years, and most applications have been ported to 32 bit,” Ubry wrote. But for companies that want to migrate to Windows 7, the 16-bit programs will need to be changed to either 32-bit or 64-bit programs.
Another challenge involves the way Windows 7 deals with 32-bit programs. Windows 7 saves 32-bit programs on a different path — typically in a directory called Program Files (x86) — from 64-bit programs, which are saved in the Program Files directory. That raises a set of problems while searching for specific applications, Ubry wrote.
“Applications that are hard coded to look for ‘Program Files’ at runtime will fail when the application is installed in ‘Program Files (x86)’,” Ubry wrote.
As much of a challenge as it is, the move to 64-bit computing is necessary and timely, Ubry wrote. It prepares Intel for future computing needs and takes advantage of the higher memory capability of systems available on the market today.
Intel has also delayed deployment of Internet Explorer 7 and IE 8, as they are not compatible with specific add-ons and applications written for Internet Explorer 6. Many applications like some Office add-ons and versions of Java are written to run with IE 6, and “mitigation of these issues must be addressed,” Ubry wrote.
Intel is also trying to tackle some improved privacy features built into Windows 7 that could create issues when trying to run programs. Microsoft has improved security in Windows 7 with an improved UAC (User Access Control) feature, which seeks permission from a user before providing access to programs. But some programs may not seek user permission and could just fail without warning, Ubry wrote. Microsoft has provided an answer that could remedy the problem with the option to run the program as an administrator.
Intel is also taking a number of steps to migrate smoothly to Windows 7. The company has set up application inventories and test environments and has established a “safety net” to run native XP applications. The safety net includes running XP applications in virtualized environments or using XP Mode, a feature in Windows 7 that allows users to run native XP programs.
A representative of Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft’s public-relations agency, said that he would arrange for someone at Microsoft to speak about Intel’s issues, but no one has yet been made available for comment.
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By JM Tuazon on February 24, 2010
By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
FRAMINGHAM (02/23/2010) - Intel was targeted by “sophisticated” attacks last month, about the same time that Google reported its network had been breached, allegedly by Chinese hackers.
In its annual report filed Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Intel confirmed that it had been hit in January.
“We regularly face attempts by others to gain unauthorized access through the Internet to our information technology systems by, for example, masquerading as authorized users or surreptitious introduction of software,” read the 10-K filing. “These attempts, which might be the result of industrial or other espionage, or actions by hackers seeking to harm the company, its products, or end users, are sometimes successful. One recent and sophisticated incident occurred in January 2010 around the same time as the recently publicized security incident reported by Google .”
Intel did not reveal whether the attacks had accessed or stolen confidential company information, an admission that Google made last month when it broke the news that it, and other major Western corporations, had been struck with what it called “highly sophisticated and targeted” attacks.
According to online reports, including a story published by Reuters this morning, Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy denied any connection between the attacks against Google and his own firm. “The only connection is timing,” Mulloy told the news service.
Only a few companies have joined Google in admitting that they were hit with attacks that relied on an exploit of a then-unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft ’s Internet Explorer 6 (IE6). Adobe was one corporation that stepped forward, while Juniper Networks and Symantec said they were investigating suspicious activity on their networks; news reports at the time claimed that Yahoo , Dow Chemical and Northrop Grumman were also attacked.
Although Google has maintained that around 30 companies were hit by Chinese hackers, other researchers have countered, saying that their investigations have uncovered a much larger number of victims .
A report last week by the New York Times implicated computers at a pair of Chinese schools; those schools, however, have denied playing any part in the attacks.
Intel did not reply to a request for comment on the attacks.
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By Tom Noda on February 16, 2010
By Matt Hamblen
Computerworld (US)
February 16, 2010
FRAMINGHAM - In separate announcements from Barcelona today, three traditional powerhouses in computing and communications — Microsoft , Intel and Nokia — kick-started major revamps to their technology to adapt to a quick-changing smartphone and mobile device market that’s increasingly dominated by Google and Apple .
“Microsoft is in a bigger ’start over’ penalty box than Intel and Nokia, but it really is a start over for all of them,” said Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates about the announcements made at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “Microsoft does have a much steeper road to climb to get back into the game than Nokia/Intel does.”
Intel joined Nokia in unveiling Meego , a Linux -based open operating system to be used in smartphones, netbooks, connected TVs and tablets. Meego combines features from Intel’s Moblin OS and Nokia’s Maemo OS. Devices using Meego are expected to arrive in the second half of 2010.
Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer touted Windows Phone 7 Series software that’s expected to be running on smartphones due out by the 2010 holiday season on a variety of carriers globally, including AT&T in the U.S.
Ballmer said the new version of Microsoft’s operating system for mobile phone will bring “more consistency in the hardware platform and in the user experience” than earlier versions.
In both announcements, it was obvious that the three companies are adjusting to the market success of Apple Inc.’s iPhone and the coming iPad tablet, as well as Google Inc. The search company is behind a host of software applications for a variety of upcoming Android OS smartphones and devices that it helped create in its sponsorship of the Open Handset Alliance.
Gold said that Microsoft has “basically had to nuke its existing OS and start over,” while Intel and Nokia could blend most of the existing code in Moblin and Maemo to create Meego.
Ballmer did not describe Windows Phone 7 Series as a start-over, of course, but implied it comes in reaction to past criticism of Windows Mobile OS and its decline in sales in late 2009.
“We have a chance to make a major impact on the [smartphone] market… (with the new OS),” Ballmer said. “We had to step back and recast.”
Ballmer also didn’t go as far as he did last fall when he told investors that Microsoft had “screwed up with Windows Mobile” and had shuffled its Windows Mobile team to regain lost ground.
Updated user functions in Windows Phone 7 include concepts such as “hubs” that display a page of contacts called “people,” for example. Other hubs will be labeled “office” for note-taking and synchronizing documents with a PC; “games,” for integrating with the Microsoft Xbox live online community; and “music+video” for synchronizing the smartphone with Microsoft’s desktop Zune jukebox and music store software.
Windows Phone 7 will also provide a touchscreen Qwerty keyboard as in some Windows Mobile 6.5 devices, Ballmer said.
Even with new innovations, Microsoft will continue to employ a licensing model where phone manufacturers pay a fee for Microsoft software, Ballmer said, offering no details. He also argued that “free” software in open operating systems such as Android might not really be free.
Gold called the Meego announcement a positive for both Intel and Nokia. It will help Nokia make a “direct assault” on the enormous momentum behind Google’s Android and Chrome, and will help Intel attack the ARM chip architecture used in smartphones and other smart personal devices, he said. ARM chips, developed and licensed by ARM Holdings, are used extensively in smartphones and mobile phones; Intel has developed the Atom chip to compete directly with ARM.
But Gold said “it remains to be seen if anyone besides Intel and Nokia will embrace Meego.” He believes Nokia will hold onto its existing Symbian OS for lower-end mobile phones, but needs something like Meego for higher end smartphones down the road.
Nokia dominates the smartphone market today with its Symbian OS, but Android is projected to catapult to the No. 2 spot behind Nokia by 2012, according to Gartner Inc. and IDC.
While Apple’s total share of the smartphone market is well behind Symbian’s, the company’s growth year-over-year — and excitement over next month’s arrival of the iPad — that make it such a challenge for traditional companies like Microsoft, Intel and Nokia.
Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld . Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt’s RSS feed@matthamblen or subscribe to . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com .
Read more about mobile and wireless in Computerworld’s Mobile and Wireless Knowledge Center.
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By Tom Noda on February 11, 2010
By Jaikumar Vijayan
Computerworld (US)
February 11, 2010
FRAMINGHAM - Security industry analysts and lawmakers will get an unprecedented chance next week to evaluate how the government might respond to a cyber-attack on critical infrastructure targets.
The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a Washington-based non-profit established in 2007 by several lawmakers, will host a simulated nation-wide cyber-attack next Tuesday for a group of former administration and national security officials, who will be playing the roles of Cabinet members.
The goal of the simulation, called Cyber ShockWave, is to see how officials in key government positions would react to a real-time cyber- attack, and to evaluate the split-second decisions they may be required to take to deal with it, a BPC alert noted.
Those playing the roles of various cabinet members include former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, the former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, former White House Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend and former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart.
The participants, none of whom will have any advance information on the simulated attacks, will be expected to advise the President on the unfolding attacks and craft a response to them. The event is scheduled to take place at Washington’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel.
A report in The Atlantic said that a considerable effort is being put into making the exercise as realistic as possible.
A production company has been hired to recreate a White House situation room in the Mandarin hotel, and professional scriptwriters will aid security experts in creating the simulated attack.
The whole exercise itself was developed by former CIA director general Michael Hayden and several others, including former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, both of whom were co-chairs of the 9/11 commission. Companies and organizations that are participating in the effort include General Dynamics, Georgetown University and PayPal.
This is not the first time that BPC has organized a similar exercise. In 2007, it hosted Oil Shockwave, an oil crisis simulation, in which nine former cabinet and national security advisors participated. The purpose of that exercise was to explore the economic and national security implications of a prolonged crisis in the oil industry.
This month’s planned cyber-security simulation comes amid growing concerns over state-sponsored attacks against critical IT assets. The recent cyber-attacks against Google and more than 30 technology companies allegedly by operatives based out of China have highlighted what many say is the need for a formal U.S. policy for deterring and responding to such attacks.
Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld . Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan or subscribe to Jaikumar’s RSS feed . His e-mail address is jvijayan@computerworld.com .
Read more about cybercrime and hacking in Computerworld’s Cybercrime and Hacking Knowledge Center.
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By Tom Noda on February 11, 2010
By Lucas Mearian
Computerworld (US)
February 11, 2010
FRAMINGHAM - Intel Corp. said this week that it plans to launch its embedded storage chip, code-named Jasper Forest , in the next several days.
Intel mentioned its storage chip’s impending release as part of its announcement Tuesday that it was going to market with its long-awaited high-end Itanium processor, code-named Tukwila.
The Forest Jasper chip, an enhanced version of Intel’s Nehalem Xeon chip, is aimed specifically at the data storage and communications market. It is expected to be able to be integrated with PCI Express (PCIe) and to natively create RAID.
The chip is expected to consolidate storage management workloads, such as data deduplication, data snap shots, virtualization and any basic storage management requirements.
Arun Taneja, founder of storage market research firm Taneja Group, said that as general purpose processors add additional cores and specialized functions (such as RAID processing or hardware-based processing of virtualization), the storage systems designer’s job becomes easier in that he does not have to attach specialized hardware to get decent performance.
“This could not be happening at a better time since a virtual server supports a lot more than a single application and performs many storage functions that were otherwise performed elsewhere,” he said.
In a response to Computerworld , Intel said it would be releasing the names of some early customers for Jasper Forest, both in the embedded market and storage realm. The processor is aimed at applications such as ultra-dense blades, IPTV, VoIP, network-attached storage (NAS) and storage area networks (SAN).
The new Jasper Forest processors are capable of configuring disk drives in an array as a RAID 5 or 6, protecting against single- or dual-disk failure, respectively.
Intel first debuted its Nehalem-based Xeon microprocessor last April.
Intel’s storage chip also supports the Storage Bridge Bay specification , which can be used to plug control boards directly into storage arrays, allowing for a denser architecture. Today, storage controllers require a separate blade slot.
Intel said the Jasper Forest chip is expected to reduce overall storage systems power consumption by 27 watts when compared to the Intel Xeon 5500 series. The dual-core Intel Xeon integrates two Jasper Forest processors with 16 PCIe Generation 2.0 lanes each and is paired with the Intel 3420 chipset platform controller hub. This integration of the I/O hub via PCIe enables significant power and space savings, resulting in one of the highest performance-per-watt Intel Xeon chips ever.
Jasper Forest also provides a scalable option to system designers ranging from a a single-core, 23-watt processor to a quad-core, 85-watt processor using the same socket.
The chips are expected to be able to protect against data loss due to power failure with a function called Integrated Asynchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory Self-Refresh memory. The feature automatically detects a power failure as it’s happening and enables memory controller sequences to finish and forces the system memory to a self refresh before shutting down.
Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld . Follow Lucas on Twitter at @lucasmearian or subscribe to Lucas’s RSS feed . His e-mail address is lmearian@computerworld.com .
Read more about storage in Computerworld’s Storage Knowledge Center.
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By JM Tuazon on February 3, 2010
By Agam Shah
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
February 3, 2010
SAN FRANCISCO - Intel on Tuesday said it has started shipping its new Itanium processor codenamed Tukwila, after multiple delays and development problems stalled its release for years.
Itanium chips are 64-bit processors designed to run fault-tolerant servers that require high uptime. The chip’s official launch is set for the first quarter of this year, Intel said in a blog entry.
Tukwila is Intel’s fastest Itanium processor yet, the company said. It adds numerous performance and architectural enhancements to boost system performance, Intel said in the blog.
“Tukwila more than doubles the performance of its predecessor and adds a range of new scalability, reliability, and virtualization features,” Intel wrote. The chip includes a quad-core design and will be an upgrade of the current Itanium 9100 series of chips, codenamed Montecito, which were introduced in 2006.
The announcement comes ahead of the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, where Sun Microsystems and IBM are expected to discuss processors for high-end servers. The conference will be held in San Francisco between Feb. 7 and 11. Intel is also due to hold a press briefing on Monday to announce a new processor, though a spokesman declined to comment on whether it would be Tukwila.
Development problems have delayed Tukwila’s release. Last February, Intel delayed the chip to add a faster interconnect and support for new technologies like DDR3 memory. In October, the release was delayed again to add application scalability enhancements.
Tukwila will most likely launch on Monday, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst for Insight 64. It is “more than a little late,” but not too late, Brookwood said. The high-end chip market moves at a glacial pace, and complex architectures like Itanium take time to develop and manufacture.
Itanium competes with high-end server processors like Sun’s Sparc processor and IBM’s Power chip.
“In this class of market, it’s more important to get [the chip] right than it is to get it early,” Brookwood said. Systems based on high-end architectures like Itanium need to be robust and reliable, he said.
IBM it set to launch the Power7 architecture, so suppliers needed an Itanium update to keep up with IBM, Brookwood said. Intel has not seen much success with the Itanium processor however, with only some vendors like HP offering the chips in systems. However, despite the long lag, there is no uncertainty about Itanium’s future. Intel has laid out a six-year roadmap for Itanium, he said.
Tukwila’s successor will be Poulson, which will be made using the 32-nanometer process, followed by Kittson. Intel did not provide a timeframe for the Poulson’s release. Tukwila chips will be made using the 65-nm process.
Intel is scheduled to launch other server chips in the first half of this year. The most anticipated chip is Nehalem-EX, an eight-core x86 chip targeted at high-end systems running applications such as databases. Nehalem-EX will be Intel’s fastest server chip to date, Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini has said. Also forthcoming in the next three months are Westmere server chips for low and midrange servers.
Nehalem-EX moves the X86 servers into higher territory, but it doesn’t match the software and robustness features of Itanium, Brookwood said. Itanium chips are targeted at mainframe systems like HP’s NonStop server line, which are a different class of servers than x86 servers.
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By Tom Noda on January 28, 2010
By Eric Lai
Computerworld (US)
January 28, 2010
FRAMINGHAM - Despite the introduction of the iPad and the harsh words of Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, netbooks will continue to thrive , say analysts and commentators, who cite the tablet’s missing features and relatively high price.
During the launch today, Jobs called netbooks “cheap laptops” that tried but failed to create a third category between smartphones and notebook PCs.
“The problem is that netbooks aren’t better than anything,” Jobs said.
Au contraire, said commentators, who called the iPad nothing more than an overgrown iPod Touch. Others suggested Apple should have launched an iNetbook instead.
ABI Research Inc. analyst Jeff Orr said the iPad is no sure thing.
“Several functions — front-facing and still/video cameras, external storage interfaces, support for Flash in the browser — are absent,” he wrote in a research note. “The iPad prices and gaps in functionality are likely to leave the door open for other media tablet vendors.”
ABI predicts 4 million tablets such as the iPad and the lesser-known Archos 5 to ship this year. That’s a fraction of the 35 million netbooks ABI said had shipped last year — a number ABI expects to grow this year.
“Most netbook purchases are based on a ‘value’ decision for portable and mobile usage, while media tablets will initially be a premium, luxury device focused on the home,” Orr said. “ABI Research expects little impact on netbook shipments in 2010 from the introduction of media tablets.”
Here’s a rundown comparing netbooks versus the iPad in several key areas, with the winner highlighted in each:
Design: iPad. One-half inch thin, 1.5 pounds. That is less than half the size and weight of most netbooks, which are weighed down by their keyboard. The iPad also boasts Apple ’s trademark style.
Camera: Netbooks. The lack of a video Webcam or a still photo camera — cameras being standard on even low-end smartphones today — has been criticized. “The lack of a camera on the iPad is a serious problem, we think,” wrote ReadWriteWeb. “Images and video are a big part of the interactivity on the Web that people have become used to, and we’re not sure how they’ll react to a device that, on the surface, seems like it should have these capabilities but is instead sorely lacking.”
Input: Toss-up. iPhone and iTouch owners will no doubt love the touch experience on the iPad. But independent analyst Jack Gold questions whether users will be able to “do any serious work” without a keyboard. The iPad does come with a dock to attach an optional keyboard, but that negates some of the form factor advantage over netbooks.
Screen: Netbooks. Size-wise, the iPad’s 9.7 -inch LCD display is on par with most netbooks today, but there are also many models with 11- or 12-inch screens. Also, score one point for netbooks, which are this year moving to brighter, lower-powered OLED screens. And dock the iPad for its wide bezel (outside frame), which caused some to criticize Apple for not swapping in a larger screen instead.
Software: Toss-up. Those in entertainment consumption mode may prefer the smooth, tight integration of the iPhone operating system, the iTunes media player and store with the iPad hardware. But for running your company’s applications or e-mail, Windows-based netbooks are better, Gold said.
Web surfing: Toss-up. Designed by an Apple acquisition, P.A. Semiconductor , the iPad’s 1 GHz CPU is reportedly fast. And the iPad will come with Wi-Fi or optional 3G from AT&T for connectivity almost anywhere. The 3G option costs an additional $130 but offers all-you-can-surf for $30 a month, or 250 MB of data per month for $15 — and without a long-term contract. That is cheaper than netbook or laptop plans for 3G, which average $60 a month. On the other hand, the iPad lacks support for Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash player, which is near-ubiquitous on the Web and available for the Linux and Windows OS on most netbooks.
Storage: Netbooks. The iPad comes with 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of flash memory. That’s the same as SSD-based netbooks, but less than the hard drive-based netbooks. Netbooks also have USB and/or SD slots for more storage — both of which the iPad lacks.
Price: Netbooks. The iPad starts at $499 and increases to $829 for a fully-loaded, 3G-enabled version. Netbooks start at about $250 and top out to at $600 or $700 for premium models.
Eric Lai covers Windows and Linux, desktop applications, databases and business intelligence for Computerworld . Follow Eric on Twitter at @ericylai , send e-mail to elai@computerworld.com or subscribe to Eric’s RSS feed .
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By Fei Lumbania on January 12, 2010
By David Murphy
PC World (US)
January 12, 2010
SAN FRANCISCO - Clarkdale to Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad (and the North Bridge): Hasta la Vista, baby.
Intel’s latest processor iteration has taken the shrink-ray to its Nehalem architecture, wrapping the company’s first 32-nanometer CPU in a brand new name (Westmere) and integrating a brand-new graphics die onto the processor. But don’t hold your breath for a perfect all-in-one package just yet: While the new Core i3 and Core i5 Clarkdale chips support a host of new options for Blu-Ray enthusiasts and casual graphics aficionados (crank those Windows 7 Aero details, connect multiple monitors, and run picture-in-picture on your Blu-ray discs), Clarkdale still delivers little to help more advanced gaming scenarios.
Upcoming Chips: What’s In It For You?
First, know that Clarkfield represents a total of seven new CPU variants: Four in the Core i5 series, two of the first Core i3 CPUs, and one Pentium G6950 entry-level variant. The prices and frequencies range from the $87, 2.8-GHz Pentium G6950 to the $284, 3.46-GHz Core i5-670. If you take a look at the load-out versus current Lynnfield-based CPUs (Core i7 800-series and Core i5-700 series processors), you might think you’ve entered into that ol’ faster-dual-core-or-slower-quad-core war from years past. You haven’t.
Clarkdale CPUs offer better performance for a better price than all but the most costly Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors (the Penryn family). However, just because they also sport faster speeds than their Lynnfield cohorts–including the “turbo clock” overclocked Core i5-600 series –doesn’t mean that they’re speedier CPUs in general. A 3.33-GHz Core i5-661 Intel test platform (using Intel’s new DH55TC motherboard) fell slightly shy of the WorldBench 6 scores from similarly-configured Lynnfield desktop systems that we’ve reviewed recently. However, it did overtake the scores of all stock-clocked Core i7-920 systems–a 45nm Bloomfield processor.
Compatibility
Four chipsets (all using the LGA 1156 socket) are compatible with the Clarkdale platform: the H55, H57, Q57, and standard Lynnfield P55-based motherboards. Here’s where it gets interesting. H55, H57, and Q57-based boards are identical in their overall construction, with each offering a new subset of Intel features as you go up the price range. H57-based motherboards can support two additional USB ports, two extra PCI Express x1 lanes, and support for Intel’s RAID-based Rapid Storage Technology. Q57 boards, more for business use, include Intel’s Active Management Technology–remote technical support. You can stick a Clarkdale processor in a P55 motherboard or, vice versa, a Lynnfield processor in an H55, H57, or Q57 motherboard. Either situation forces you to use a discrete graphics card, however.
Graphics Performance
As mentioned, integrated gaming performance isn’t for tough titles. While Clarkdale systems might thrive on less demanding titles, the CPU’s integrated graphics weren’t enough to deliver playable frame-rates on PC World’s Unreal Tournament 3 benchmark at anything but a 1024-by-768 resolution screen at medium quality settings or less. And a forewarning: the sixteen PCI Express x16 lanes supported by Clarkdale chips cannot be split into dual x8 lanes for CrossFire or SLI should you aspire to transform your Clarkdale rig into a souped-up gaming machine. Clarkdale intends to make its mark on more common computers… including those in your living room.
And if you’re interested in a mobile version of Clarkdale, you’ll want to check out all the details on its equivalent for notebooks, Arrandale.
When Will Clarkdale Processors Arrive?
Intel hasn’t announced availability of its Clarkdale processors just yet, but the not-quite-a-rumor is that the company will be unveiling the Westmere lineup preceding CEO Paul Otellini’s keynote speech at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show this Thursday.
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By Fei Lumbania on January 11, 2010
By Tom Noda on January 7, 2010
By Computerworld Philippines Staff
January 7, 2010
Local players in the Philippine ICT industry recently took the stage in December during the 2nd CyberPress ICT Choice Awards given out by the country’s association of IT journalists.
Three persons and entities were honored in the event as they made their mark despite the financial crisis that hit 2009 affecting individuals and companies alike.
The awarding ceremony, which was conducted alongside the group’s Christmas party, picked this year’s achievers in five categories, namely: IT Story of the Year, IT Product of the Year, IT Startup of the Year, IT Executive of the Year, and IT Company of the Year.
It was also the start of the Lifetime Achievement Award by CyberPress meant to honor personalities who contributed immensely to the development of the local IT industry. The first recipient of the award is Dr. William “Bill” Torres, hailed as the “Father of Philippine Internet.”
As cofounder and former CEO of Mozcom, the country’s first commercial ISP, Torres spearheaded the negotiations with the US government in the 1990s to bring Internet to the Philippines. He also holds the distinction as the first Filipino to acquire a PhD degree in computer science in the US.
In his acceptance speech, Torres said it is important for the country to take advantage of the benefits offered by technology. He cited, in particular, the cloud computing model, which he said is ideal for a developing nation like the Philippines.
Voted as IT Story of the Year was “Smartmatic-TIM undertakes 2010 election automation project.” It won over four nominated IT-related stories such as the IBM-GSIS feud, Cloud Computing, Unlimited Mobile Services, and the Explosion of Social Networking particularly during the Ondoy typhoon calamity.
Windows 7, Microsoft’s newest operating system bagged the award for IT Product of the Year. It outvoted the iPhone 3GS, iPod Nano, Globe Tattoo and Canon 500D products. The IT press acclaimed it as light and efficient, saying the OS was a big improvement by Vista. Microsoft Philippines country manager John Bessey accepted the trophy.
The IT Startup of the Year was Inovent Inc., a new Filipino tech company that unveiled in 2009 a prototype of an LCD interactive television (iTV) set, claiming to be the first of its kind to be produced in the Philippines. The categories other nominees were Sulit.com.ph and ANTS.
Chosen as IT Executive of the Year was Ricky Banaag, who has become a virtual institution in the local tech industry by leading Intel Microelectronics Philippines for the 12th straight year. He has also provided a steady hand to Intel despite the closure of the company’s manufacturing arm in 2009.
Banaag outvoted three IT executives, namely Ramon Arteficio, president and CEO, Canon Marketing (Philippines) Inc.; Manuel Wong, general manager, Acer Philippines; Vicky Agorrilla, country manager, Lenovo Philippines; and Ryan Guadalquiver, managing director, HP Philippines.
Finally, the IT Company of the Year award was given to Acer Philippines as it exceeded expectations in 2009 by becoming the top PC vendor in the country. Globally, it now threatens HP after knocking out Dell at number two, the IT press said.
The list of nominees for the awards was drawn up during the CyberPress leadership seminar last December 5 to 6 in Baras, Rizal. CyberPress members, composed of journalists from the print, online and broadcast media then voted for their choices via an online poll.
The CyberPress ICT Choice Awards follows the lead of other press groups which have been bestowing awards over the years in their respective sectors. Examples include the “Athlete of the Year” award of the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) and the “Car of the Year” award of the motoring press corps.
Officially named as IT Journalist Association of the Philippines (ITJAP), CyberPress is the first IT press club established in South East Asia (SEA) in mid-1996 and remains to be the only IT media organization in the Philippines. – Tom S. Noda
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By JM Tuazon on December 18, 2009
By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
December 18, 2009
FRAMINGHAM - The worldwide semiconductor industry hit such a slump in 2009 that it will likely go down as one of its steepest sales declines since 1985, according to Gartner Inc.
The Stamford, Conn. research firm issued a report this week projecting that worldwide semiconductor revenues will total $226 billion in 2009, 11.4% — or $29 billion — less than in 2008. Gartner noted that the 2009 results mark the first time ever that semiconductor sales declined two years in a row.
“Revenue dropped precipitously in the first quarter of 2009, continuing a deterioration which started in the last quarter of 2008,” said Stephan Ohr, semiconductor research director at Gartner, in a statement.
Gartner’s projection comes about a month after investment house Morgan Stanley cut its rating on the semiconductor industry from “attractive” to “cautious,” while also downgrading the likes of Intel. Corp., Nvidia Corp. and Micron Technology Inc.
At the time, Morgan Stanley analysts Mark Lipacis and Sanjay Devgan wrote in a note that rising inventories and concerns about PC component sales drove them to be more cautious about the industry.
This is particularly bad news for industry watchers who have been predicting that the semiconductor market will lead the U.S. economy out of the mire it’s been in the past few years.
Gartner noted that the industry saw a slight uptick toward the end of the first quarter and realized quarter-over-quarter growth throughout the rest of 2009. But that growth still wasn’t enough to lift the industry out of the doldrums, it added.
Just last month IDC had reported that worldwide computer chip shipments skyrocketed in the third quarter compared to the second quarter. The IDC report noted that after chip makers had struggled through quarter after recent quarter over the past couple of years, third quarter PC microprocessor shipments jumped 23%.
Nonetheless, the full year wasn’t a good one for semiconducor makers.
“Yes, it was a bad year for the semiconductor segment,” said Dan Olds, an analyst for The Gabriel Consulting Group. “However, it’s interesting to note that the pain was not universal.” He cited Gartner’s projection that Samsung’s 2009 sales will grow by 2.55% while Intel’s sales will decline by “only” 5.4%, “while others like STMicroelectronics and Renesas were down much more.”
Gartner said that Hynix Semiconductor and Qualcomm also showed revenue growth of 2.3% and 0.4% respectively.
The companies hit the hardest this year were Infineon Technologies, whose sales are expected by Gartner to fall by 46.5% drop, and Renesas Technology, whose decline is said to total 19.9%. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is projected to take a 10.1% hit this year, according to Gartner.
“AMD and Intel were definitely impacted by lower demand in PCs and servers,” said Olds. “However, I think there is a chance for a recovery in 2010 as demand picks up. I think that consumer sales will pick up if confidence returns. Business sales will recover a bit in any case, as businesses have postponed purchases that they will have to make at some point.”
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By Fei Lumbania on December 7, 2009
By Agam Shah
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
December 07, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO - Intel is delaying the commercial release of its Larrabee graphics processor, which had been due out next year, and is not providing a new launch date.
The company originally planned to start selling the many-core chip sometime in 2010, but has fallen behind where it hoped to be in Larrabee’s development, an Intel spokesman said Friday. He did not provide a more detailed reason for the delay.
Intel remains committed to delivering the graphics chip and will discuss further plans next year, the spokesman said. It will launch samples of Larrabee for developers next year, along with tools to let them write and test applications for it, he said.
Intel demonstrated a system based on Larrabee in September at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. It said then that the chip would ship next year, but did not give a specific date. Intel has also kept several basic details about the chip secret, including how many processor cores it will have.
Larrabee will be Intel’s first discrete graphics processor. It has characterized it as a many-core processor that will be able to perform the same type of tasks as a multicore CPU, but deliver more parallelism by offering more pipelines to process data.
The chip will be based on the x86 architecture and will be capable of full graphics-processing capabilities. It is designed to compete with offerings from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, which offer graphics chips for gaming and high-performance applications.
Intel officials have said some of the technology behind Larrabee may be used in the future to produce graphics cores that can be integrated into CPUs.
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By JM Tuazon on November 18, 2009
By John Mark V. Tuazon
Computerworld Philippines
November 18, 2009
ALBAY, BICOL - Investing in PC refresh every three years, rather than waiting for the hardware’s end-life, is optimal for most firms to get the most value out of their investment, an executive from chip innovator Intel Technology Philippines urged Friday.
Speaking at the Synergy 2009 Forum jointly organized by Intel and HP in Cagraray Island, Albay, Bicol, Ricky Banaag, Intel Philippines country manager, said three years is the ideal time frame for a refresh strategy because most warranties phase out after that designated period.
“Most devices are already out of warranty after the third year, driving support costs up and heightening operational costs in the process,” Banaag explained. Among many support cost drivers due to a lag in the refresh cycle include out-of-warranty repair, deployment of new applications, service packs, updates and patches, and hardware and software malfunctions.
Banaag said most companies are missing out on potential benefits of newly-developed computing technologies if they refuse to upgrade their hardware systems after the optimal timeframe. “New PCs can be a lot more secure, protecting companies from security incidents that add to the risk factor of firms,” he stressed.
According to independent data from Wipro Consulting shared by Banaag during the forum, security risks usually increase by the fourth year of the product life cycle, escalating to as much as 87% by the fifth year.
Innovations such as Intel’s vPro technology, Banaag shared, shield PC’s from potential risks brought by the increasing number of threats each year. “vPro’s inherent proactive security, embedded manageability and energy efficiency will help the computing environment more secure,” he noted.
More importantly, Banaag emphasized, refreshed PCs help firms save costs by delivering business functions at a faster and more efficient rate. “Companies can save as much as $3 million and reduce operational costs by 50% if they make the decision to upgrade on their third year versus the fourth year,” he said.
The same data from Wipro Consulting reveal that companies are sticking to their normal refresh rates, or are speeding it up, even in the midst of the global economic downturn. At least 60% of companies polled—composed of 106 firms in North America & Europe—said they have not altered their refresh policies, while a small yet significant 8% said they are speeding up their refresh rates.
“Companies are taking advantage of new technologies that deliver better TCO, that’s why they are investing on a refresh despite the downturn,” Banaag suggested. “Tech refresh offers a viable scenario for sustaining growth during the crisis.”
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By Fei Lumbania on November 13, 2009
By Marc Ferranti
IDG News Service (New York Bureau)
November 13, 2009
NEW YORK - Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Thursday announced that they have settled all antitrust litigation and patent cross-license disputes between the companies.
Under terms of the deal, Intel will pay AMD US$1.25 billion, and has agreed to a set of business practice provisions, according to a statement from the companies.
AMD and Intel also said they have agreed to a new five-year cross-license agreement, and have given up claims of breach of contract from the previous license agreement.
“While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development,” the companies said in a statement.
On its part, AMD has agreed to drop all regulatory complaints worldwide and all pending legal disputes, including a case in U.S. District Court in Delaware and two cases in Japan. The agreement will be made public in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the companies said.
Intel still has legal battles to fight, however. On Nov. 4, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Intel, charging that the chip giant conducted a “systematic campaign” of illegal conduct to protect a monopoly.
Cuomo’s lawsuit, says Intel forced computer makers into agreements to favor Intel chips and threatened to punish those thought to be working too closely with Intel competitors like AMD.
Cuomo’s lawsuit came about two weeks after news reports that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is considering filing a formal complaint against Intel. The New York attorney general’s lawsuit mirrored AMD’s suit, according to Intel.
The European Commission fined Intel €1.06 billion (equivalent to US$1.44 billion at the time) in May, after finding it guilty of antitrust violations.
In 2008, the Korea Fair Trade Commission fined Intel about $25 million for abusing its dominant position in the PC processor market.
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By Fei Lumbania on November 13, 2009
By Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld (US)
November 13, 2009
FRAMINGHAM - Imagine a day when you can make your cell phone smaller to fit more comfortably in your pocket, then make it bigger so you can text more easily.
Now, imagine that you could make your cell phone take the shape of a headset when you want to talk on it or re-shape it like a bracelet so you can wear it while jogging.
Those scenarios could be real in the not-so-distant future, according to researchers at both Intel and Carnegie Mellon University .
Scientists are using distributed computing and robotics to make shape shifting a reality. In essence, they’re working to take millions of millimeter-sized robots and enable them, through software and electromagnetic forces, to take on various shapes and sizes.
Nearly two years ago, Seth Goldstein , an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told Computerworld that he was working with a team of scientists at Intel and the U.S. Air Force Research Lab to create programmable matter . This week, Goldstein and Jason Campbell , a senior staff research scientist at Intel’s research lab in Pittsburgh, say they now are able to demonstrate that the physics they’ve been talking about are real.
“It’s been pretty hard but we’ve made a lot of progress,” said Campbell. “Optimistically, we could see this in three to five years. It will take us longer…. We’re not there yet, but we see a path.”
The programmable matter is called claytronics and the tiny robots are called catoms. Each catom will have its own processor. Think of each catom as a tiny robot or computer that has computational power, memory and the ability to store and share power.
And using the idea of distributed computing, researchers are working to program millions of catoms to work together, much like a swarm of bees or a flock of birds.
Goldstein explained that researchers hope to write one program that will engage the entire system of catoms, instead of trying to write code for each one. Developers are focused on creating software that will focus on a pattern or overall movement of the system of tiny robots. Then each robot will be smart enough to detect its own place in the pattern and respond accordingly. If, for instance, a catom, or robot, detects that it has only one other catom beside it, it will know that it’s on an end and can act according to what the end piece should be doing.
“Generally, people learn how to program a single machine,” said Goldstein. “Think of the ensemble as the system.”
Part of the scientists’ research is creating new programming languages, algorithms and debugging tools to get these massive systems to work together.
And the shape-shifting efforts go beyond being able to change the size or shape of your cell phone. Goldstein had explained previously that it could mean being able to better use the space in a small apartment by being able to change a dinner table into a poker table for a party and then into a bed at the end of the day.
It also could mean that instead of looking at images on a screen, gamers could have animated figures running around their houses. And instead of calling your co-worker to discuss something, a 3D facsimile of him or her could sit in your office and discuss a new project or the next year’s budget.
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By Fei Lumbania on November 12, 2009
By Fei Lumbania on November 9, 2009
By Nancy Gohring
IDG News Service (Seattle Bureau)
November 9, 2009
SEATTLE - Gigabyte Technology issued a BIOS update on Friday that fixes a problem for some Windows 7 users who have been unable to sync their iPhones.
Earlier this week, Intel, Microsoft and Apple said they were investigating the issue, which people are complaining about on an Apple forum. The problem seems to be mainly affecting Windows 7 64-bit users with Intel P55 chipsets, and it prevents them from synching their iPhones with their computers.
On Friday, a few people posted on the forum that they’d downloaded the new BIOS from Gigabyte, a motherboard maker, and it solved the problem. In the description of the update, Gigabyte calls it a Beta BIOS and says that it fixes the iPhone sync issue, among other enhancements.
The BIOS update will help people who have the Gigabyte motherboard in their systems, but it won’t help other people who have the problem, such as those with an Asus motherboard.
Earlier this week, Microsoft also said it was looking into the problem and recommended that people visit its help page for updates. It does not appear to have posted any information there and did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the Gigabyte update.
Though an Apple employee asked people on the forum to send details of the issue, it does not appear to have posted further information about the fix yet.
Intel said it could not comment on the Gigabyte BIOS update.
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By Fei Lumbania on October 29, 2009
By Agam Shah
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
October 29, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO - Tilera on Monday announced new general-purpose CPUs, including a 100-core chip, as it tries to make its way into the server market dominated by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.
The two-year-old startup’s Tile-GX series of chips are targeted at servers and appliances that execute Web-related functions such as indexing, Web search and video search, said Anant Agarwal, cofounder and chief technology officer of Tilera, which is based in San Jose, California. The chips have the attributes of a general-purpose CPU as they can run the Linux OS and other applications commonly used to serve Web data.
“You can run us as an adjunct to something else, though the intent is to be able to run it stand-alone,” Agarwal said. The chips could serve as co-processors alongside x86 chips, or potentially replace the chips in appliances and servers.
Chip makers are continuously adding cores as a way to boost application performance. Most x86 server chips today come with either four or six cores, but Intel is set to release the Nehalem-EX chip, an x86 microprocessor with eight cores. AMD will shortly follow with a 12-core Opteron chip code-named Magny Cours. Graphics processors from companies like AMD and Nvidia include hundreds of cores to run high-performance applications, though the chips are making their way into PCs.
The Gx100 100-core chip will draw close to 55 watts of power at maximum performance, Agarwal said. The 16-core chip will draw as little as 5 watts of power.
Tilera’s chips have an advantage in performance-per watt compared to x86 chips, but some will be skeptical as the chips are not yet established, said Will Strauss, principal analyst at Forward Concepts.
“I don’t think an average person is going to run out to buy a computer with Tilera in it,” Strauss said. Intel has the advantage of being an incumbent, and even if Tilera offered something comparable to Intel’s chips, it would take years to catch up.
But to start, Tilera is focusing the chips on specific applications that can scale in performance across a large number of cores. It has ported certain Linux applications commonly used in servers, like the Apache Web server, MySQL database and Memcached caching software, to the Tilera architecture.
“The reason we have target markets is not because of any technological limitations or other stuff in the chip. It is simply because, you know, you have to market your processor [to a] target audience. As a small company we can’t boil the ocean,” Agarwal said.
The company’s strategy is to go after lucrative markets where parallel-processing capability has a quick payout, Strauss said. Tilera could expand beyond the Web space to other markets where low-power chips are needed.
It helps that applications can be programmed in C as with an Intel processor, but programmers are needed to write and port the applications, Strauss said. “How easy is it to port Windows or Linux also remains to be seen,” he said.
Applications like Apache and MySQL already run on x86 chips and can be ported to run on Tilera chips, company executives said. In a co-processor environment, x86 processors will run legacy applications, while the Tilera will do the Web-specific applications, he said.
“As a smaller company, we can focus in on a couple of applications, drive those, and over time as we grow, we can expand,” said Bob Doud, director of marketing at Tilera. The company didn’t talk about the markets it would like to go into in the future.
However, industry analysts say that application performance either levels off or even deteriorates as more cores are added to chips. Part of the performance relies on how the cores are assembled, said Agarwal, who is also a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
For faster data exchange, Tilera has organized parallelized cores in a square with multiple points to receive and transfer data. Each core has a switch for faster data exchange. Chips from Intel and AMD rely on crossbars, but as the number of cores expands, the design could potentially cause a gridlock that could lead to bandwidth issues, he said.
“You can have three or four streets coming in but … it’s hard to imagine 30 streets coming into an intersection,” Agarwal said. The mesh architecture used in Tilera chips is expandable as the square gets bigger, he said.
In addition to additional cores, the new Tilera chips include many upgrades from their predecessors. The chips are speedier, running at up to 1.5GHz, with support for 64-bit processing. The chips will be made using the 40-nanometer process, which make them smaller and more power-efficient. Earlier chips were made using the 90-nm process. The chips will start shipping next year, with the 100-core chip scheduled to ship in early 2011. Volume pricing for the chips will range from US$400 to $1,000.
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By JM Tuazon on October 27, 2009
By John Mark V. Tuazon
Computerworld Philippines
October 27, 2009
BANGKOK – With the impending launch of its new Atom platform dubbed Pine Trail-D, chip manufacturer Intel said manufacturers can take advantage of the new chip’s low footprint in designing all-in-one PCs that offer specific purposes to end users.
During a meeting with the Asia Pacific press last week, Noury Al-Khaledy, general manager for nettop and netbook computing for Intel, said the Pine Trail-D’s unique minimal structure enables manufacturers to build around a fanless design that takes up less footprint. “The only limit [for manufacturers] is how innovative they can get with the design of their products,” he added.
With the possibilities of creating various designs built for different purposes, Al-Khaledy said it is not long before consumers can avail of all-in-one nettops that can be mounted on their kitchen countertops, or businesses use it to deliver specific services to consumers. “In processor design innovation, we are doing the abnormal and making it normal,” he quipped.
All-in-one computers—once popularized by Apple through its iMac line—are desktop units whose central processing cores are integrated around the design of the monitor, usually a widescreen display. Intel Atom’s Pine Trail-D technology, combined with mini desktop boards, allow manufacturers to come up with designs that take up less space yet offer more intuitive features.
Aside from a smaller package area, Intel’s Pine Trail-D also offers reduced power through the energy-efficient 2-chip microarchitecture, lowering the thermal design power by as much as 50%, according to Intel. An extra PCI slot—absent in the initial release—also allows users to integrate third-party cards, such as NVIDIA’s Ion video card made specifically for the Atom line.
Operating system support, meanwhile, remain accessible to most consumers as Intel said the Pine Trail-D will support basic editions of Windows XP, Vista and even the upcoming Windows 7. But Intel solidifies its foray into the software space through Moblin, a versatile Linux client optimized for the Intel Atom technology built by the company from the ground up.
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By JM Tuazon on October 26, 2009
By John Mark V. Tuazon
Computerworld Philippines
October 26, 2009
BANGKOK — Nettops will soon bridge the digital divide in the Asia Pacific region as innovation on cheap yet efficient systems continue to spur market growth, positioning nettops as a good primary PC for first-time buyers, revealed Intel executives during a meeting with the Asia Pacific press in Bangkok last week.
Intel said that even though two-thirds of all nettops sold in the region are from mature markets, the opportunity for emerging markets remains bright. “Nettops have faster traction among first time buyers in both the consumer and commercial spaces,” explained Eric Li, product marketing manager, Intel.
Li said that consumers act as primary drivers for nettop growth in the region, with first time buyers in the education space taking the larger portion of the market. “[Units used for education] are the second highest priority among Asian families,” he added.
This is the reason why, according to Li, Intel is positioning the nettops for first-time PC owners. With nettops ranging from $200 to $400 in price, Li said they are breaking the cost barrier and are offering customers “affordability with the right performance.”
Moreover, the industry momentum for nettops provide for a strong ecosystem around the platform, Li said. “Healthy channel partners and local OEM involvement also drive this growth in nettops,” he added.
In the Philippines, Li noted, major telecommunications firms act as important channel partners spurring adoption through bundled promos. “Affordable PC bundle promos are available for households, home offices, small businesses, personal users and entrepreneurs looking to open their own Internet Café business,” he added.
“Business models are evolving and new channels are emerging to drive affordable computing across Asia Pacific,” he pointed out.
Despite this positive outlook, nettops have yet to enjoy the widespread popularity of netbooks in the region. Noury Al-Khaledy, general manager for nettop and netbook computing, Intel, however said that nettops and netbooks target different segments of the market, so users looking for cheap computing devices can actually opt for nettops instead of netbooks.
“Netbooks are very personal, while nettops are for those who are willing to share,” he said. “With that, nettops are more suited for families so parents can supervise their children’s usage.” Al-Khaledy went on to add that despite the rising popularity of netbooks, people will still continue to buy desktops “mainly for home-based computing.”
Meanwhile, Intel said firms—particularly SMBs—stand to gain in adopting nettops for enterprise computing. “SMBs represent a significant growth opportunity in Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand and Vietnamn,” said Li, adding that growth in these regions is also driven by government stimulus funds due to the recent crisis.
On the other hand, large enterprises looking to replace legacy workstations with efficient units with a small form factor can also benefit from nettops. “Atom-based thin clients can also be great alternatives for companies,” Al-Khaledy added.
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By Fei Lumbania on October 20, 2009
By Juan Carlos Perez
IDG News Service (Miami Bureau)
October 20, 2009
MIAMI - Simon Montford has high expectations for this week’s Web 2.0 Summit, which he will attend for the first time after years of wanting to come to this emblematic conference about the Internet economy’s challenges and opportunities.
As he gets ready to launch his Vibio.com social trading tool, which is now in private beta, Montford decided that attending the Web 2.0 Summit, a considerable expense for his London-based startup, is worth it.
The company, which has a sales office in San Francisco and its development team in Scotland, is now putting the finishing touches on its Web application and moving into customer acquisition mode.
“My primary objective at Web 2.0 Summit is knowledge acquisition to see what others are doing in this space, what complementary companies are attending the event that we could work alongside, and what quality people would like to work on the Vibio project,” he said.
Montford will be among 1,000 other entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, industry pundits, technology honchos, and business executives gathering at a hotel in San Francisco from Tuesday until Thursday.
High-wattage speakers will include Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, Twitter CEO Evan Williams, Web luminary Tim Berners-Lee, Intel CEO Paul Otellin, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, along with high-ranking executives from SAP, Microsoft, Nokia and MySpace.
At the event, produced by O’Reilly Media and TechWeb, conference moderators John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly will hammer on this year’s main theme, which they call “Web Squared.” The idea is that, no longer a gee-whiz set of novelty online services, Web 2.0 applications, technologies and sites have become an integral part of the world, woven into the fabric of people’s lives, and as such carry a bigger set of social responsibilities.
“The new direction for the Web, its collision course with the physical world, opens enormous new possibilities for business, and enormous new possibilities to make a difference on the world’s most pressing problems,” reads a recent essay penned by O’Reilly, CEO of O’Reilly Media, and Battelle about the Web Squared concept.
It’s a logical progression for Web 2.0 Summit, the seminal conference that chronicled the first signs of the Internet economy’s resurgence and explained its causes. Now in its sixth year, Web 2.0 Summit has since analyzed the transformations and disruptions on society and the economy of Web ventures that have become financial powerhouses and mainstream consumer tools.
“If we are going to solve the world’s most pressing problems, we must put the power of the Web to work — its technologies, its business models, and perhaps most importantly, its philosophies of openness, collective intelligence, and transparency. And to do that, we must take the Web to another level. We can’t afford incremental evolution anymore,” the essay reads.
This message resonates with Yvonne Marie Andres, who feels that educational institutions have been slow and reticent to embrace Web 2.0 technologies that can energize and boost classroom learning activities through improved collaboration.
“Everybody aggress with the concept of Web 2.0 and collaborative communities but it has a long way to go before it’s part of the school system, in the U.S. and around the world,” said Andres, president and CEO of Global SchoolNet Foundation, a non-profit organization that tries to bridge the gap between schools and Web 2.0 tools.
A big obstacle are school IT departments that, as knee-jerk reactions, block access to online learning and academic collaboration services and sites, for fear that students will get in trouble and create a liability for the institution, she said. Instead, IT departments should work with the curriculum teams and find appropriate, safe Web sites and online tools that are out there.
A previous Web 2.0 Summit attendee, Andres is skipping the conference this year but will follow it via webcasts, Twitter feeds and other social media outlets, to share and discuss ideas on the intersection of Web 2.0 and education.
“We should be focusing on infusing this [Web 2.0 technology] into the school systems in a systematic way so young people can start to understand how to collaborate on a distributed environment,” Andres said.
We’ll see whether at the end of the three-day confab a critical mass of attendees will walk away convinced that as Web 2.0 movers and shakers they now have a higher societal responsibility than before.
What’s clear is that A-List type vendors will be talking up their products, like Microsoft, which will offer a preview of the mobile version of its Bing search engine, including some new mobile applications. Online payment provider PayPal will have officials at hand promoting the upcoming launch of its PayPal X open development platform. Representatives from enterprise software vendor SAP will hawk the company’s new BusinessObjects Explorer business intelligence tool.
Amidst all the marketing hoopla from vendors, Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group, which provides research and advice on social media and emerging technologies, sees Web 2.0 at an inflection point.
“Web 2.0 today is really developed and moving into another phase where people are focused much more on the implementation rather than on what it is,” she said.
However, in this phase, companies are grappling with the tension of learning to deal with the changes that Web 2.0 brings to workplaces, especially regarding how companies interact with and relate to their employees and their customers. “Companies are coming face to face with the difficulty of what Web 2.0 really means,” Li said. “We’re at a big transition point here.”
For Montford, Vibio.com’s CEO, the main priority right now is keeping his startup on course and getting the most out of his participation in the conference.
“I’m at the point now that I’m willing to take the risk and make the investment to attend and hope I come away with all of my objectives,” he said.
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By Fei Lumbania on September 29, 2009
By Agam Shah
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
SAN FRANCISCO (09/23/2009) - Intel is showing off a prototype laptop this week that has four screens, increasing the display area so that multiple applications can be viewed simultaneously.
The laptop has a primary LCD screen in the usual position and three small OLED (organic light-emitting diode) touch screens just above the keyboard. Code-named Tangent Bay, the system is being shown at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.
The prototype on display here isn’t particularly stylish-looking, but the extra screens might add some convenience. In a demonstration, they were used to display a music playlist, a photo album and a calculator, which could all be operated via the touch screens while running a different application on the main screen.
Tangent Bay pushes the limits on the number of screens available on laptops. Companies including Lenovo have released two-screen laptops, with an auxiliary display that slides out behind the main LCD screen.
Intel is showing the prototype in the hope that systems builders will pick up the design and offer a commercial product. The division of Intel that builds these prototypes earlier came up with the small mobile Internet devices, or MIDs, which were offered by some companies.
Intel Marketing Manager Renuka Awasthi, offering another example of how a four-screen system might be useful, said a person scouring the Web for a vacation deal could launch a calculator, weather site and chat session on the other screens.
“There’s no limitation to the applications you can run on the auxiliary screens,” according to Awasthi. “People value additional display real estate.”
Certain tasks lend themselves to the small screens, such as writing Twitter messages or updating a Facebook page. Users can drag and drop applications between the screens to change what’s displayed.
Intel came up with the design after a study showed that some laptop users have 20 to 30 applications running at once, making it difficult to sort through them and find information.
Some people also like using widgets — small programs that sit on the desktop to display information — but other applications can obscure the widgets if they are all on the same screen, Awasthi said.
The four-screen laptop used a standard-voltage Intel Core 2 CPU and integrated Intel graphics, though Intel representatives declined to provide further hardware details.
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By Fei Lumbania on September 24, 2009
By Agam Shah
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
SAN FRANCISCO (09/23/2009) - Intel on Wednesday released its fastest laptop processor to date, also setting the stage to release its next generation of chips for mainstream laptops.
The new Core i7 processors are Intel’s first laptop chips based on the Nehalem microarchitecture, and include many enhancements that allow the processors to outperform existing Core 2 laptop processors. The quad-core processors are targeted at high-performance gaming laptops and business workstations.
The Nehalem microarchitecture is considered a significant upgrade over Intel’s earlier microarchitectures, as it cuts bottlenecks to improve overall system speed and performance-per-watt. The new chips are also able to shut down dormant cores and move the extra processing power to active cores. The technology, called Turbo Boost, can boost chip speeds up to 3.33GHz depending on the power drawn by the laptops.
Intel introduced three Core i7 processors on Wednesday. The Core i7 920XM will run at 2.0GHz, with up to 8MB of cache. The Core i7-820QM will run at 1.73GHZ, with 8MB of cache. The Core i7-720QM will run at 1.6GHz and include 6MB of cache. The chips will be made using the 45-nanometer manufacturing process. The i7-920XM, i7-820QM and i7-720QM processors are priced at US$1,054, $546 and $364, respectively, in units of 1,000.
The chips’ launch also sets the stage for Intel to introduce its next generation of laptop chips based on Nehalem. The company will deliver faster and more power-efficient chips based on Nehalem to budget laptops.
“We are going to bring [Nehalem] technology to the masses early next year,” said David Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s architecture group, during a speech on Wednesday at the Intel Developer Forum trade show in San Francisco.
Intel hopes to create more integrated chips that pack even more features as it moves to the latest chip manufacturing process by the end of this year. The company will start making laptop processors using the latest 32-nm process in the fourth quarter. Intel has seen a 30-times reduction in power consumption in 32-nm process chips compared to the 45-nm process.
The first 32-nm chips for budget laptops, code-named Arrandale, will be a significant upgrade to existing Core 2 Duo chips. Arrandale is a two-chip package with an integrated graphics processor, which could help improve graphics performance while drawing less power. The initial chips will come in dual-core configurations with 4MB of cache. The chips allow each core to run two threads simultaneously so more tasks can be run at the same time.
The new chips will be part of the Westmere microarchitecture, which is a shrink of Intel’s existing Nehalem microarchitecture. Nehalem provides a faster pipe for the CPU to communicate with system components like a graphics card. Nehalem chips integrate a memory controller onto the chip to provide a faster access path to memory.
PC makers including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba and Asustek Computer started shipping laptops with the latest Nehalem chips on Wednesday.
Dell has already started putting the new Core i7 chips in multimedia laptops. The new Studio 17 will come with the Core i7-720QM and include the 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium OS, which is eligible for a Windows 7 upgrade. It also offers ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 graphics, supports up to 4GB of DDR3 memory and includes two 1.5-watt speakers and a 6-watt subwoofer in the case. It includes a 17.3-inch display, comes with a 2-megapixel webcam and supports up to 250GB of storage. It comes with a 9-cell battery, though Dell didn’t immediately comment on battery life. Its prices start at $1,099.
Dell’s laptops with 15.6-inch screens — the Studio 15 and Studio XPS 16 laptops — will also include new processors. Studio 15 prices start at $999, while the Studio XPS 16 starts at $1,249. Dell’s Alienware gaming unit also launched the new Alienware M15x laptop with the Core i7-920XM laptop, which has a 15-inch screen and Nvidia’s GeForce graphics card.
Toshiba on Wednesday launched the Qosmio X505-Q850 laptop, which has a hulking 18.4-inch display and includes Intel’s Core i7-720QM processor. It supports up to 6GB of memory and 320GB of storage. It will include Nvidia’s GeForce GTX graphics card. Pricing for the product hasn’t been set, and it will be available next month.
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By JM Tuazon on September 23, 2009
By Jon Brodkin
Network World (US)
September 23, 2009
FRAMINGHAM - Will machines ever be as smart as humans? Intel CTO Justin Rattner thinks that someday, they might.
The notion of a technological “singularity,” a time when machines match and surpass human intellect, has been popularized by thinkers such as inventor and author Raymond Kurzweil, who commonly cites Moore’s Law in his arguments about the exponential growth of technology.
Rattner’s views on the singularity are sought after, given that he is CTO of the world’s biggest chipmaker and the head of Intel Labs, the company’s primary research arm. In a recent interview with Network World, Rattner said he has “tried to sidestep the question of when [the singularity] might occur,” but says machine intelligence is constantly increasing due to laws of accelerating returns, “of which Moore’s Law is perhaps the best example.”
“There will be a surprising amount of machines that do exhibit human-like capabilities,” Rattner said. “Not to the extent of what humans can do today, but in an increasing number of areas these machines will show more and more human-like intelligence, particularly in the perceptual tasks. So yeah, at some point, assuming all kinds of advances and breakthroughs, it’s not inconceivable we’ll reach a point that machines do match human intelligence.”
Already, scientists are working on placing neural sensors and chips into the brain, allowing people to control prosthetic limbs with their own thoughts. This is likely to become a “relatively routine procedure” in a few years, Rattner said.
Rattner said that while many commentators are preoccupied with the far-off singularity, he concerns himself more on how laws of accelerating returns “are real” and could lead to amazing advances in technology, including augmentation of the human body.
“Assuming that interface technology progresses in an accelerating way, the possibilities of augmenting human intelligence with machine intelligence become increasingly real and more diverse,” Rattner said.
Rattner’s views are also held in high regard in the world of supercomputing, of course, and he will deliver the opening address at the SC supercomputing conference in Portland, Ore. in November. Nearly 80% of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers use Intel processors.
The world’s first petaflop machines, capable of performing one thousand trillion calculations per second, came online just last year. But Rattner says the supercomputing industry is already looking forward to the era of the exaflop — 1,000 times faster than a petaflop.
Rattner says the fundamental technologies behind a future exaflop machine could be demonstrated by the middle of next decade, and — depending on government investment — the first exaflop machines could become operational in the second half of the decade.
But this still depends on overcoming limitations in today’s computing architectures.
“Now that we’ve achieved petascale computing, there’s all this interest in getting the next factor of 1,000,” Rattner said. “But we can’t get there with today’s technology, largely because of power considerations. You’d need a 500-megawatt nuclear power station to run the thing.”
The industry will have to move that number down to something practical, perhaps tens of megawatts, Rattner said. But the work is just getting started.
“We’ve got a lot of really big engineering challenges,” Rattner said. “Today, we just don’t know how to get there.”
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By Tom Noda on September 22, 2009
By Paul Meller
IDG News Service (Brussels Bureau)
September 22, 2009
BRUSSELS - In an unusual move, the European Commission unveiled e-mail exchanges between Intel and computer manufacturers that its antitrust officials describe as “smoking gun” evidence from the probe that resulted in the chip maker being fined just over $1.45 billion in May.
A non-confidential version of the May ruling was made public Monday, less than a week after Intel’s formal appeal of the decision was released by the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg. In its appeal, the company accused Europe’s top antitrust authority of erring in law, conducting sloppy analysis and denying it the right to a fair defense.
“Late last week Lenovo cut a lucrative deal with Intel. As a result of this, we will not be introducing AMD-based products in 2007 for our Notebook products,” said a Lenovo executive in a December 2006 internal e-mail that the Commission released.
Hewlett-Packard told the Commission that Intel granted it credits subject to unwritten requirements, including that HP should purchase at least 95 percent of its business desktop system from Intel.
In an e-mail written in July 2002 during the negotiation of the rebate agreement between HP and Intel, an HP executive wrote: “PLEASE DO NOT… communicate to the regions, your team members or AMD that we are constrained to 5 percent AMD by pursuing the Intel agreement.”
The Commission found Intel guilty of handing out rebates to PC manufacturers on condition of near or total exclusivity, and of paying PC makers to delay the launch of models equipped with Advanced Micro Devices chips.
At the time of the ruling antitrust officials described the e-mail evidence they had gathered as “a smoking gun”, but were unable to make the messages public.
The version of its ruling released Monday shows “specific cases of these conditional rebates and naked restrictions, as well as how Intel sought to conceal its practices and how computer manufacturers and Intel itself recognized the growing threat represented by the products of Intel’s main competitor, AMD,” the Commission said in a statement.
The rebates and restrictions amount to an abuse of Intel’s dominant position in the X86 CPU market, it said, adding that the chip maker’s behavior “indicates the growing threat that AMD’s products represented to Intel, and that Intel’s customers were actively considering switching part of their x86 CPU supplies to AMD.”
In an October 2004 e-mail from Dell to Intel, a Dell executive said that AMD is “a great threat to our business. Intel is increasingly uncompetitive to AMD which results in Dell being uncompetitive to [Dell competitors]. We have slower, hotter products that cost more across the board in the enterprise with no hope of closing the performance gap for 1-2 years.”
It is unusual for the Commission to defend one of its antitrust rulings before a formal appeal is heard in Luxembourg. Some observers said that releasing the e-mails was intended to counter the accusations Intel levelled at the Commission last week.
Others said the Commission was taking advantage of the disruption in Intel’s legal team, following the resignation of Bruce Sewell, the company’s top antitrust lawyer a week ago. Sewell left to join Apple, leaving behind him outstanding legal disputes on both sides of the Atlantic.
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By Tom Noda on September 15, 2009
By Owen Fletcher
IDG News Service (Beijing Bureau)
September 15, 2009
BEIJING - Pat Gelsinger, a top executive who has been with Intel for 30 years, is leaving the company for EMC, an EMC spokeswoman said Monday.
Storage vendor EMC will hire Gelsinger as president and chief operating officer for the company’s information infrastructure product portfolio, the spokeswoman said, asking not to be named. Gelsinger, currently co-manager of Intel’s core digital enterprise group, has long been a key executive for Intel. He has also held the positions of chief technology officer and research head at Intel.
The EMC spokeswoman declined to say when the move would take effect. An Intel spokeswoman declined to comment but said Gelsinger is listed as a keynote speaker on the Web site for next week’s Intel Developer Forum.
Gelsinger’s move was first reported in The New York Times, which said Intel plans to announce a raft of management changes including his departure on Monday. A report in The Wall Street Journal said Gelsinger will immediately take over EMC’s storage product operations.
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By JM Tuazon on September 14, 2009
By John Mark V. Tuazon
Computerworld Philippines
September 14, 2009
After introducing what’s regarded as the fastest microprocessor in the market to date, Intel rolled up its sleeves and introduced on Thursday its new offerings to the local market, including two new Core i7 processors and the mid-level Core i5 processors.
The new Intel Core i5, said Intel officials, is ideal for users who want excellent overall performance in a scalable platform. “The new processors feature smarter and faster processing using Intel’s TurboBoost technology,” said Ricky Banaag, country manager for Intel Philippines.
The TurboBoost technology is an intelligent response mechanism which automatically boosts processing power depending on available resources, application type, power and temperature factors.
The new core i7 processors—the i7-870 and i7-860—boasts of the same Nehalem architecture found in the previously-released Core i7 processors, with an added boost of HyperThreading technology enabled. The Core i5 processors, Intel said, do not bear the HyperThreading option.
Despite this, Banaag said the Core i5 processors can process information at a speed of 2.66GHz, which can burst to up to 3.2GHz because of the TurboBoost technology.
“We are positioning the new Core processors as a transition point for three-year old PC users who are looking to upgrade to the Core family of processors,” Banaag said, adding that users who are looking to try the Core processors but won’t be needing the entire processing power of the first i7 processors would find the new ones ideal.
Alongside the release of the consumer processors, Intel also unveiled the new Xeon 3400, which brings the Nehalem micro-architecture to the server market. “The Xeon 3400 is the ideal cost-effective solution for companies using desktops as servers,” Banaag said.
The entry-level server processor, Banaag reiterated, is ideal for purposely-built servers that are required run 24/7. “The new Xeon processor is approximately 39% to 80% better and faster than previous releases,” Banaag claimed.
With the new processor releases, Intel is bent on penetrating the mainstream market with their Core offerings. “We are providing lower price points especially for migrating users,” Banaag stressed. Retail partners present during the release placed the Core i5 processors at the P10,000 price point, while the Core i7 processors ship at around P16,000. The Xeon 3400 unit—complete with server peripherals—could reach as much as P50,000, they said.
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By Fei Lumbania on September 14, 2009
By Agam Shah
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
SAN FRANCISCO (09/13/2009) - Intel on Monday said it had starting sampling Nehalem-based chips code-named Jasper Forest, reaching a milestone in its effort to create smaller and power-efficient chip packages.
Jasper Forest is the first time Intel has integrated the I/O hub directly inside a processor, eliminating the need for a separate I/O controller, said Steve Smith, vice president digital enterprise group operations at Intel.
The integration helps reduce the power drawn by a system while saving space on a motherboard, Smith said. In one test, Intel took a quad-core Xeon chip based on the Nehalem microarchitecture into which it integrated the I/O hub and netted 27 watts of power savings.
“We have removed a fairly large-footprint chip and saved power by integrated [the I/O hub] on to a single chip,” Smith said. The chips will provide similar performance to existing Nehalem-based Intel Xeon processors, but be more power efficient, Smith said.
This is one more step in the company’s efforts to integrate more features into the CPU, Smith said. Intel has already integrated the graphics processor with a CPU in a single package, and it hopes to pull in more components.
The I/O hub is an interface that connects different components on a motherboard. The I/O hub found in the Xeon chip supports PCI Express, which is commonly used in PCs.
The Jasper Forest chips will come in single-core, dual-core and quad-core variants designed for the embedded, communications and storage equipment markets. The chips could appear in systems starting in early 2010.
Smith declined to name customers to which Intel has sent the chips for sampling.
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