Intel Core Process Family - Desktop

Intel Core Processor Family - Desktop

Intel® Core™ i7 Processor Brilliantly fast

With faster, intelligent, multi-core technology that applies processing power where it's needed most, new Intel® Core™ i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in PC performance. They are the best desktop processors on the planet.¹

You'll multitask applications faster and unleash incredible digital media creation. And you'll experience maximum performance for everything you do, thanks to the combination of Intel® Turbo Boost technology² and Intel® Hyper-Threading technology (Intel® HT technology)³, which maximizes performance to match your workload.

Product information

• 2.93 GHz and 2.66 GHz core speed
• 8 processing threads with Intel® HT technology
• 8 MB of Intel® Smart Cache
• 3 Channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory

Features and benefits

Go to the next level of multi-core performance.

Intel Core i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in quad-core performance and feature the latest innovations in processor technologies:

Intel® Turbo Boost technology maximizes speed for demanding applications, dynamically accelerating performance to match your workload—more performance when you need it the most.²

Intel® Hyper-Threading technology enables highly threaded applications to get more work done in parallel. With 8 threads available to the operating system, multi-tasking becomes even easier.³

Intel® Smart Cache provides a higher-performance, more efficient cache subsystem. Optimized for industry leading multi-threaded games.

Intel® QuickPath Interconnect is designed for increased bandwidth and low latency. It can achieve data transfer speeds as high as 25.6 GB/sec with the Extreme Edition processor.

Integrated memory controller enables three channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, resulting in up to 25.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth. This memory controller's lower latency and higher memory bandwidth delivers amazing performance for data-intensive applications.

Intel® HD Boost significantly improves a broad range of multimedia and compute-intensive applications. The 128-bit SSE instructions are issued at a throughput rate of one per clock cycle, allowing a new level of processing efficiency with SSE4 optimized applications.

Source - intel.com/products/processor/corei7/index.htm

Intel Core Processor Family - Desktop

Intel® Core™ i7 Processor Extreme Edition The highest performing desktop processor on the planet.

Intel® Core™ i7 processor Extreme Edition
Wield the ultimate gaming weapon

Conquer the world of extreme gaming with the fastest performing processor on the planet: the Intel® Core™ i7 processor Extreme Edition.¹ With faster, intelligent multi-core technology that accelerates performance to match your workload, it delivers an incredible breakthrough in gaming performance.

But performance doesn't stop at gaming. You'll multitask 25 percent faster and unleash incredible digital media creation with up to 79 percent faster video encoding and up to 46 percent faster image rendering, plus incredible performance for photo retouching and editing.¹

In fact, you'll experience maximum performance for whatever you do, thanks to the combination of Intel® Turbo Boost technology² and Intel® Hyper-Threading technology (Intel® HT technology)³, which activates full processing power exactly where and when you need it most.
Product information

* 3.20 GHz core speed
* 8 processing threads with Intel® HT technology
* 8 MB of Intel® Smart Cache
* 3 Channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory
Source - intel.com/products/processor/corei7EE/index.htm

The world of flash games for casual users of Internet.

By statistic around 45% of users are surfing in Internet without a special aim, trying to get some entertainment. The life like a speed train is running ahead involving us into to hurricane of events. And when a time of vacation comes or unexpected illness keeping us staying at home, or school holidays, you may get bored from abundance of spare time. The human nature is venturesome, willing for entertainment and to raise adrenalin. Online games is a good instrument to satisfy this nature without loosing money, without odd risks, without bad after-effects they relax your intense mind, giving rest to your thoughts emotions and body, taking away amassed stress. Flash games won’t ask you to think much; they don’t have high demands to your computer hardware, but immersed you into a virtual world, the world of fantasy where everything is possible.

Well, online games are more and more popular and there is many game portal which offers thousands of games, but high quality games is only a quarter of this mass. We’ll talk about GamezHero portal, with many quality games divided into categories. It has quite simple interface understandable for users, easy controls in games, and no need for downloading plus it’s a free service. We’ll review some of categories.

Action games contain many free addicting games for your choice like Dynamic Double team based on Batman comic’s characters, where playing a Batman and Blue Beetle you will challenge Kanjar Ro’s space pirates saving an entire planet from possible distraction. Straw Hat Samurai is a unique fighting; crazy racing in Dream Racer made in 3D graphic and many others.

If you prefer to play games by yourself – no need for registration, just load a game and go ahead. For multiplayer mode you’ll have to pass a simple registration.

Arcade games – interesting game: Look out, Mr. Johnson!, where actually you are the ghost help to your friend in his adventure by… eating people. Well know Sonic Xtreme, where you should avoid the cankerworms; Batman series: “Batman. The cat and the bat” where you challenge a Cat woman, who stole your utility belt, fighting the robotic lions.

Many more interesting games like races, games for girls, puzzle, and sport you will find here.

One more plus of multimode online games is that you can find friends, just someone like you – casual user of Internet, and who know they may became your real friends.

INTEL corporate history

Intel headquarters in Santa Clara
Intel was founded in 1968 by Gordon E. Moore (a chemist and physicist) and Robert Noyce (a physicist and co-inventor of the integrated circuit) when they left Fairchild Semiconductor. A number of other Fairchild employees also went on to participate in other Silicon Valley companies. Intel's third employee was Andy Grove, a chemical engineer, who ran the company through much of the 1980s and the high-growth 1990s. Grove is now remembered as the company's key business and strategic leader. By the end of the 1990s, Intel was one of the largest and most successful businesses in the world.

Source-- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Corporation

INTEL history

Intel was an early developer of SRAM and DRAM memory chips, and this represented the majority of its business until the early 1980s. While Intel created the first commercial microprocessor chip in 1971, it was not until the success of the personal computer (PC) that this became their primary business. During the 1990s, Intel invested heavily in new microprocessor designs and in fostering the rapid growth of the PC industry. During this period Intel became the dominant supplier of microprocessors for PCs, and was known for aggressive and sometimes controversial tactics in defense of its market position, as well as a struggle with Microsoft for control over the direction of the PC industry.The 2007 rankings of the world's 100 most powerful brands published by Millward Brown Optimor showed the company's brand value falling 10 places – from number 15 to number 25.
In addition to its work in semiconductors, Intel has begun research in electrical transmission and generation

Source -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Corporation

INTEL

Intel Corporation is the world's largest semiconductor company and the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers. Founded on July 18, 1968 as Integrated Electronics Corporation and based in Santa Clara, California, USA, Intel also makes motherboard chipsets, network cards and ICs, flash memory, graphic chips, embedded processors, and other devices related to communications and computing. Founded by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, and widely associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove, Intel combines advanced chip design capability with a leading-edge manufacturing capability. Originally known primarily to engineers and technologists, Intel's successful "Intel Inside" advertising campaign of the 1990s made it and its Pentium processor household names

Source -- wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Corporation

Apple iPhone - Mapping Market

Mapping Market Opportunities for the Apple iPhone

Apple's iPhone was the hot topic during a session at the Web 2.0 Summit. The 451 Group's Raven Zachary and other panelists discussed the market potential for the smart phone in the mobile and wireless sector. Can Google, Nokia, Microsoft and RIM catch up? Here are some compelling data points that make the iPhone seem like Mt. Everest for those challengers.

SAN FRANCISCO—What is the growth potential for Apple's iPhone? That was the subject of a panel discussion at the Web 2.0 Summit here Nov. 5.

The 451 Group analyst Raven Zachary and others provided some statistics that clearly show the iPhone, the most popular smart phone, in the driver's seat versus competing smart phones from Nokia and RIM, as well as phones that run Microsoft Windows Mobile and Google's Android mobile operating systems.

There are several opportunities for application developers to create compelling applications for the iPhone, both native and Web applications.

Even John Doerr, the venture capital genius at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, told the audience at the Web 2.0 Summit later in the day that the iPhone can be revolutionary beyond the PC because it is personal, leverages broadband and can be taken anywhere.

Apple & Google Defrag Starts

Defrag Starts with Look at Strategic Intuition of Apple, Google

Google and Apple took pages out of the playbooks of other companies to create the powerhouse desktop computers and search engines we benefit from today, Columbia Business School Associate Professor William Duggan says. At the Defrag conference, Duggan discusses what he calls the strategic intuition of Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin that led to their accomplishments.

DENVER—Apple and Google revolutionized the PC and search engine markets, respectively, but company leaders borrowed their key concepts from others who came before them.

That was the crux of the Defrag opening keynote speech here Nov. 3 from Columbia Business School Associate Professor William Duggan.

Duggan, whose speech covered the gist of his 2007 book, "Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement," said one thing Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had in common is flashes of insight into how to improve an existing practice.

Bonaparte helped cultivate the art of war. Edison set the mass production of electric light bulbs in motion. Ford did the same for mass assembly of cars.

Jobs saw the future of computing in another company's GUI. Brin and Page combined existing data mining, Web crawling and early online advertising concepts to create Google.

To illustrate his point regarding modern high-tech innovation, Duggan showed the Defrag audience a short clip of Robert Cringely's 1996 film "Great Artists Steal." In it, Jobs discussed how he visited Xerox's PARC lab in 1979 and was blown away by the GUI the company employed for its personal computer. Jobs said in the movie:

I was so blinded by the first thing they showed me, which was the graphical user interface. I thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen in my life.

This, Duggan said, is the language of someone who experienced a "flash of insight."

Similarly, Google's Page saw something in AltaVista's search engine that flipped a switch in his own brain. That something was the process of links that "find pages that link to your site," Duggan said.

Page used reverse links, recreated AltaVista's search technique and combined it with Brin's data mining efforts, and Google as we know it was born.

To make money, Page and Brin mimicked Overture's process of listing advertisements alongside Web pages, which led what is Google's massive $16 billion-plus search keyword business today.

These flashes of insight, or strategic intuitions, in which entrepreneurial leaders combine a number of innovations to revolutionize an industry, are fueling the high-tech market, Duggan said.

Microsoft's Bill Gates was also famous for such flashes. Duggan did not mention Microsoft, though he discusses Gates in his book.

Duggan concluded his speech by saying Defrag attendees could experience those flashes of insight. Dare to dream!

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Defrag-Starts-With-Strategic-Intuition-of-Apple-Google/

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft (Semanti Offers Search Plug-in)

Semanti's SemantiFind browser plug-in lets Google, Yahoo and Microsoft search engine users leverage semantic technologies to refine their research results. The free tool, which sits on users' browsers as a toolbar, lets users virtually bookmark Web pages they found useful for future users. Crowdsourcing at its finest in cloud computing.

Semanti Nov. 3 has joined Gogimon and TigerLogic as the latest in a raft of software providers looking to augment search results from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft with a browser add-on.

One key difference: Semanti's free SemantiFind plug-in employs semantic search to help users refine their search results and boost the activity for those Web sites by ranking them as useful with one click.

The add-on, which plants a toolbar on users' browsers, was originally offered for Google and received so-so reviews from ReadWriteWeb in September. Semanti added Yahoo and Microsoft support today, giving it coverage of some 90 percent of the search market.

Semanti provides a demonstration of the tool using Google in a video. Semanti CEO Bruce Johnson did a search for "Porsche mileage" on a browser augmented with SemantiFind. When he entered Porsche into Google, he saw pop-up definitions of Porsche, and two definitions for mileage, one for distance traveled and one for fuel economy.

Upon hitting enter, he saw search results from SemantiFind at the top of the page, with Google results underneath. Google results were ambiguous, which Johnson said illustrates the problem with traditional search engines. Because SemantiFind takes into account the multiple meanings of search queries, it was able to provide more accurate results for the user.

Johnson also did a search for "Porsche fuel economy." Google provided different results, but SemantiFind yielded the same results as the "Porsche mileage" search because it understands the user's intent behind the search. Moreover, SemantiFind helps users filter out the noise associated with Google results by graying out the inaccurate results.

How does SemantiFind get its results? Crowdsourcing, of course. Searchers can boost the ranking of quality Web pages they found useful through SemantiFind by clicking the Semantify button in the SemantiFind toolbar.

This action remembers the search queries a user entered so the next time a user searches for something comparable, the Web page will show up in the SemantiFind results. This will work for not just the searcher who entered the results, but for anyone doing searches in the future. Think of it as a virtual bookmark of sorts.

In short, the searches you do on SemantiFind today will influence the searches you or someone else does tomorrow. This is great in theory, but it also means SemantiFind needs to have a lot of people searching on it to boost the value of the plug-in.

SemantiFind is essentially providing semantic search results on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft without a whole new search engine, which is an interesting value proposition.

Johnson told eWEEK Semanti didn't want to be another Hakia, Ask.com or Powerset, all of which created their own search engines. He said the current searches people are accustomed to are good enough for 80 percent of Web searchers.

SemantiFind is free for users, mainly because you can't charge for a general search engine and expect to make money and Semanti wants to build out a big user base.

In the future, Johnson said he hoped to make money through placing ads alongside SemantiFind results. No small double-edged sword here: Some users are already worn out from ads alongside Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Adding them alongside the SemantiFind plug-in may alienate users. We'll see.

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Semanti-Offers-Free-Semantic-Search-Plugin-For-Google-Yahoo-Microsoft/

Google, Yahoo Is Still Open to a Deal with Microsoft

Minus Succor from Google, Yahoo Is Still Open to a Deal with Microsoft - Yang Considers Future in Wake of Failed Google Deal
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When Battelle asked Yang about what happened with Google, Yang confirmed that Google walked away from the companies' proposed search ad deal, but told Battelle he'd have to ask Google why.

Google clearly decided that they did not want to stay with [the deal]," Yang said.

Yang also said the DOJ did not understand "our industry" and that the agency's definition of the search advertising market was too narrow. “Things like this have unintended consequences on the ... industry,” he said.

Now Yahoo is back at square one. Yang said the company is not in negotiations with Microsoft but declined to comment on any dealings with AOL. The company's stock price is $13.93, nearly $20 less than what Microsoft was willing to pay.

Despite this, Yang declined having regrets over the last 15 years. He characterized what Yahoo has been through in 2008, including the failed acquisition bid, the mass employee exodus and the plummeting stock price, as "extraordinary."

This is a characterization that should interest Yahoo investors, who lost millions of dollars on the company. GigaOM's Om Malik provides a guilt trip post here.

The embattled chief also rebuffed Battelle's suggestion that Yang's ego kept the Microsoft bid from succeeding, noting that he is not adamant about Yahoo remaining independent. Again, this is contrary to media reports that Yang wanted to turn Yahoo around internally instead of aligning with Microsoft.

Whether this has always been the case or not, we may never know. What is clear is that Yang's cooperative stance is easy to take now that both Microsoft and Google have left Yahoo without a suitor.

The question now becomes: Can Yahoo turn itself around with Yahoo Open Strategy, the company's plan to rewire Yahoo and effectively open up its cores search and other Web services to the distributed intelligence of outside programmers?

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Minus-Succor-From-Google-Yang-Says-Still-Open-to-a-Deal-With-Microsoft/1/

Google, Yahoo Is Still Open to a Deal with Microsoft

Under fire since failing to come to terms with Microsoft on an acquisition for Yahoo, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang braves the crowd at Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Among other things, Yang said he'd still strike a deal with Microsoft, though one is not pending; Google bailed; and the Department of Justice doesn't grasp the online advertising space.

SAN FRANCISCO—Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said he regrets that Yahoo and Microsoft couldn't come to terms on a merger earlier this year and that the best thing for Microsoft to do would be to buy Yahoo.

Yang, speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit Nov. 5, exhibited a Zen-like calm for a leader under fire for the last several months. The statements, made to a packed house at the Palace Hotel, seem startling given that Yang was reported to be thoroughly opposed to joining Microsoft.

Still, in answer to Web 2.0 Summit co-host John Battelle's question about what happened with the Microsoft takeover bid, Yang said, "To this day I would say the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo. I don't think that is a bad idea at all."

Battelle broke in, suggesting "just at $40 per share," which was what Yang and the rest of Yahoo's board asked Microsoft to pay when Microsoft made its $33-per-share bid Jan. 31. "Oh no, I think that at the right price, whatever the price is, we were willing to sell the company."

Yang added the Microsoft walked away from the offer. Yang's stance clashes spectacularly with the legacy of media coverage of the back-and-forth between the companies after the deal collapsed. Many media outlets quoted sources close to Yahoo as saying that Yang was fiercely determined to keep Yahoo as an independent company.

Reports said Yang was particularly adamant about not doing such a deal with Microsoft, which is a traditional software company trying to become a provider of popular Web services. That, of course, is what Yahoo became famous for.

Google swooped in to the rescue. Google and Yahoo June 12 struck a search ad deal proposal designed to both enable Google search keywords to run alongside Yahoo results and keep Microsoft at bay.

When the U.S. Department of Justice pushed back on the deal because it believed the deal wouldn't maintain a level of fair competition in online advertising, and seemingly balked at Google and Yahoo's concessions, Google bailed.

Source- eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Minus-Succor-From-Google-Yang-Says-Still-Open-to-a-Deal-With-Microsoft/

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft - Only Problem is

Only Problem with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Search Is It's Awful

It is still too early to know how this is faring, but Chi noted that SearchMonkey is Yahoo's stab at investing in an ecosystem to attract folks interested in indexing structured data. Opening the platform has paved the way for MySpace, LinkedIn, Yelp and others to influence search.

Ultimately, Yahoo wants to create world in which people with "distributed intelligence" cooperate to improve search because even the thousands of programmers at Google, Yahoo and Microsoft "won't come up with everything" regarding search, he said.

One imagines Allen, Tague and Murphy breathed an internal collective sigh of relief. These men and their companies are all working on providing vertical search beyond the 10 blue links the general search vendors currently offer.

Tague said there will be a place for vertical search engines in the future and these won't necessarily cannibalize top-line search, and he is optimistic that these vertical searches will reap some ad revenue. He also said companies will have to resolve how the social graph interoperates with search in an age in which walled gardens keep data tethered.

Allen said Siderean wants to help assemble search and discovery tools on demand in a business context, which is something Google and co. won't do at this point. He said he anticipates that the paradigm of search being about getting a Web page is evolving to help users find people, places and things, so that results pages will reflect an aggregated analysis of what you want to get back.

In short, through semantic technologies that divine the meaning behind queries and the application of the social graph to search technologies, search will get smarter.

One audience member asked the panel whether and when we will be able to "skip the search results page" and receive geographically dispersed data in some other way, thanks to "folksonomies" and other relevant groupings of behavior.

Such a solution seems like some hybrid of search, social networking and wikis. Wikia and others seem to be moving in that direction, but the search results page remains.

In conclusion, no one knows what the next-generation search engine will look like, although the panelists agreed that semantics and social collaboration will play a role. Do you have any ideas?

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/The-Only-Problem-With-Google-Yahoo-Microsoft-Search-is-That-Theyre-Awful/1/

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft - Only Problem is ..

Only Problem with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Search Is It's Awful

Search engine experts at the Defrag conference say they believe the future of search engines and corresponding Web services will involve semantic technologies and the social graph. But will this mean the gradual fading of general search results pages as we know them from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft? What will searches look like to users if this is the case?

DENVER—The search engine market is on the precipice of some great innovation, but no one knows exactly what next-generation search engines will look like, four search experts concluded during a panel on the future of search at the Defrag conference here Nov. 5.

The conversation, which included Yahoo's Tom Chi, Siderian Software's Bradley Allen, Thomson Reuters' Tom Tague (for the OpenCalais Web service) and Isys Search Software's Derek Murphy started with the basic agreement that current search engine results from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are flooded with too much noise.

This is noise in search: Allen said while running he heard two women talking about doing Google searches and not knowing what to do after receiving millions of results. "It's wonderful technology and when it works it's great, but there is no guidance" as to what to do if users can't find what they need within the first 10 blue links, he said.

Chi, whose company is the second-leading search engine behind Google and has drastically overhauled its process to change that, was less kind about the current state of search. "The only problem with search is that it's awful, but other than that it works pretty well," he said.

That blatant oxymoron aside, Chi said search is generally stupid. When he checks search logs, he said, he notices that people are still doing navigational searches for Ebay.com, which is "ridiculous."

But rather than take steps to make search more intelligent on behalf of users, Chi said, major players—Google, Yahoo and Microsoft—are not highly motivated to do this because if a user spells eBay wrong and does a spelling correction to get other results, search engines still profit from those mistakes thanks to online advertising clicks.

Yahoo is positioning itself to change this by attempting an ambitious broad stroke. Yahoo earlier in 2008 opened up its search platform, which it calls SearchMonkey, to let objective outside programmers build applications that augment search for users.

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/The-Only-Problem-With-Google-Yahoo-Microsoft-Search-is-That-Theyre-Awful/

AMD Slashes Another 500 Jobs to Save Costs

Advanced Micro Devices, which has been struggling to regain its financial standings for nearly two years, announced that it will cut another 500 jobs as its looks to "break even" by the start of 2009. The additional job cuts come after AMD already announced that it would reduce its work force by 10 percent earlier this year. In addition to these cost savings, AMD has spun off its manufacturing division into a new company has sold underperforming divisions within the company.

Advanced Micro Devices is eliminating another 500 jobs, including more than 150 positions at its Austin, Texas, facility, as the company looks to regain its financial standings after nearly two years of losses.

In a statement released Nov. 5, an AMD spokesman announced that the chip maker decided to slash an additional 500 jobs from its payroll. Earlier this year, AMD announced that it will eliminate 10 percent of its global work force to reduce costs and make the company more competitive against larger rival Intel. After the current cuts, AMD will now have about 15,000 employees worldwide.

The cost cutting comes just a month after AMD announced it will spin off its manufacturing division into a new company, which should save the company millions of dollars in costs. While this week’s job cuts are not directly related to the spin-off, it shows that AMD is doing all it can to save money while rebuilding its business around its core strengths of CPU and graphics design.

AMD is also eliminating underperforming parts of the company. In October, AMD announced that it had sold its Digital Television division to Broadcom for $141 million.

Michael Silverman, an AMD spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that these layoffs are aimed at helping AMD achieve its $1.5 billion “break-even” revenue point. As 2009 approaches, Silverman wrote that AMD is looking at other ways to save even more costs.

“Today’s announced headcount reduction is an unfortunate but necessary part of this process to help us align our people with the focused programs that achieve our objectives, eliminate duplication of efforts and allow us to operate more efficiently,” Silverman wrote.

“As we prepare for 2009, we will continue to assess AMD’s programs, activities and staffing needs, in order to ensure that we align with our global market realities, and set the company up for consistent profitability,” Silverman added.

In October, AMD reported another round of disappointing financial results. In the third quarter, the company reported a loss of $67 million, or 11 cents per diluted share. The company’s net revenue stood at $1.78 billion.

While AMD is cutting workers, Dell announced earlier this week that it will look to reduce costs by asking employees to take voluntary, unpaid vacations and the company will offer a series of buyouts for other workers. Dell is also starting a hiring freeze that could save additional costs.

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/AMD-Slashes-Another-500-Jobs-to-Save-Costs/

Intel's Atom Chip Propels Worldwide Processor Market

Intel's Atom Chip Propels Worldwide Processor Market in the Third Quarter

A new report from IDC finds that Intel’s Atom processor, a chip designed to create a whole new market of low-cost desktop and notebooks, helped propel the entire microprocessor market in the third quarter of 2008. The results meant that Intel kept its dominance in the overall market. AMD, meanwhile, watched as its market share of notebook processors shrank, but the company did gain back some momentum in the server and workstation segment thanks to its quad-core Opteron processor.

Intel’s Atom processor is starting to have a significant impact on the overall microprocessor market, as shipments of the chip for a series of low-cost notebooks and desktops helped the world’s processor market grow in the third quarter of 2008, according to a new IDC report.

Overall, shipments of microprocessors for PCs and servers grew 15.8 percent in the third quarter of 2008 compared with same time period a year ago. Revenue from chip sales increased about 4 percent for a total of $8.3 billion. Without the Intel Atom processor, shipments would have only increased about 8 percent, according to the Nov. 3 IDC report.

The IDC report did note that while shipments and revenue increased in the third quarter, the fourth quarter remains difficult to calculate since the financial crisis and credit crunch in the United States started to intensify in September. On Oct. 31, Intel issued a warning that the credit crunch could begin having an impact on its business, since its enterprise customers might have trouble financing the purchases of new PCs and server systems.

Intel has called for its fourth-quarter revenue to fall between $10.1 billion and $10.9 billion, which is below seasonal averages.

In the meantime, Advanced Micro Devices, Intel’s main rival in the x86 chip market, watched its share of mobile processors slip, but the company did manage to increase its share of the server and workstation market thanks to its quad-core Opteron processor.

“Not considering the effects of Atom, the overall market still grew at a decent pace in [the third quarter of 2008],” Shane Rau, an analyst at IDC, wrote in a statement. “Intel’s and AMD’s shipments grew at a rate only slightly slower than typical for a third quarter; seasonal demand appeared reasonable up until September. By segment, while the mobile processor segment grew aggressively, the server segment was soft.”

The influence of Intel’s Atom processor for low-cost notebooks, or “netbooks,” was on display in the last week of October, when Dell, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard all released new laptops built around the Atom chip. By the end of 2008, shipments of low-cost notebooks are expected to top 10 million units, with some of the biggest sales coming in the United States and Western Europe.

In the overall x86 market, Intel’s share of microprocessor shipments topped 80 percent, an increase of 1.1 percent from a year ago. AMD lost 1.2 percent of its market share for a total of 18.5 percent. Via Technologies, which makes low-watt processors for netbooks, only accounted for less than 1 percent of the total market.

Intel controlled about 87 percent of the world’s mobile chip shipments, while AMD accounted for about 11.5 percent, a decrease of about 1 percent from 2007. Via accounted for about 1.2 percent of the market. On the desktop side, Intel controlled about 73.5 percent, while AMD held 26.4 percent.

The one area where AMD gained market share from Intel was within the server and workstation market. Here, AMD’s market share stood at about 14 percent, a gain of less than 1 percent from a year ago. Meanwhile, Intel lost about 1 percent of its share, and the company now accounts for about 85 percent of chip shipments to this market.

While the positive news through the first three quarters of 2008 has meant that IDC will raise its chip forecast for the year to 18 percent growth, the research firm believes that the overall economy will have a significant impact on the market in 2009. Researchers now plan to lower their forecast for next year.

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/EMBARGO-1201AM-EST-113-Intels-Atom-Chip-Propels-Worldwide-Processor-Market-in-the-Third-Quarter/

Feds Charge Ex-Intel Employee..

Feds Charge Ex-Intel Employee with Taking $1 Billion in Trade Secrets

A former Intel employee, who had just taken a job with rival Advanced Micro Devices, has been indicted by federal prosecutors and charged with taking about $1 billion in trade secrets as he left Intel for AMD. In a statement, AMD said the man no longer works for the chip maker and AMD is cooperating with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts.

A former Intel employee, who has left for another position with rival Advanced Micro Devices, has been charged by federal prosecutors with taking nearly $1 billion in processor trade secrets from the chip giant, according to published reports.

The five-count indictment charges that Biswamohan Pani downloaded about a dozen technical papers from Intel as he prepared to leave for another job at AMD. All together, the papers held about $1 billion worth of research and development secrets, including designs for microprocessors, according to a Nov. 6 report in the Associated Press.

The case is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts and the FBI. Pani’s attorney denied the charges, according to the Associated Press. If convicted, Pani could face a maximum sentence of 10 years for taking the trade secrets, plus an additional 20 years for wire fraud.

The indictment was handed down the week of Nov. 3. Pani appears to have downloaded the documents during a four-day period in June,

In a statement, AMD spokesman Michael Silverman wrote that Pani is no longer working with AMD. AMD is cooperating with federal prosecutors and the FBI. The Associated Press reported that AMD did not know that Pani took the papers from Intel as he waited to join the company.

“AMD is cooperating fully in the FBI investigation into this matter,” Silverman wrote in an e-mail to eWEEK. “AMD has not been accused of wrongdoing, and the FBI has stated that there is no evidence that AMD had any involvement in or awareness of Mr. Pani’s alleged actions.”

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Feds-Charge-ExIntel-Employee-with-Taking-1-Billion-in-Trade-Secrets/

Intel's Atom Processor in Fujitsu's U820 Notebook

Fujitsu is revamping its lineup of ultraportable mini-notebooks, and the company now plans to offer an Intel Atom processor with its new LifeBook U820 laptop. The Fujitsu LifeBook U820 notebook is a small, compact notebook thanks to a 5.6-inch display. Fujitsu is also offering the LifeBook P1630, a convertible tablet with an 8.9-inch screen, as well as the Fujitsu LifeBook N7010, which is marketed as a desktop replacement.

Finally, as part of a three-product unveiling, Fujitsu is rolling out the LifeBook N7010, with its 16-inch display and Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor running at 2.26GHz. And Fujitsu has built a second, smaller, touch-screen display into the N7010: This 4-inch display allows users to view photographs, control the CD/DVD drive or launch a second application while still working on the primary screen.

In addition to its desktop replacement laptop, Fujitsu is revamping its lineup of compact, ultraportable LifeBook notebooks with the LifeBook U820—which boasts the Intel Atom processor and an optional 64GB SSD (solid-state drive)—as well as unveiling a revamped convertible tablet, the LifeBook P1630.

Fujitsu is releasing all three notebooks Nov. 4.

The Fujitsu LifeBook U820 is the company’s second try at offering an extremely compact, lightweight notebook that is even smaller than the types of low-cost notebooks, or "netbooks," that have flooded the market in just the last months. In the last week of October, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo all released netbooks based on Intel’s Atom processor.

Click here for images of the new Fujitsu notebooks.

In 2007, Fujitsu brought out the LifeBook U810, a mini-notebook that offered users a compact 5.6-inch display, weighed less than 2 bounds and used an Intel A110 processor running at 800MHz. With the LifeBook U820, Fujitsu kept the screen size at 5.6 inches and the weight at less than 2 pounds—1.32 pounds to be exact—but the company outfitted the notebook with an Intel Atom Z530 processor, which runs at 1.6GHz, which should boost the performance.

Fujitsu and other PC vendors are starting to see some benefits from these types of notebooks. Earlier this week, IDC released its report on the world’s x86 microprocessor market and found that Intel’s Atom chip helped boost processor sales despite concerns that the financial crisis has begun to cut into both consumer and enterprise spending.

While the LifeBook U820 uses the Intel Atom chip, it would be difficult to classify this mini-notebook as a typical netbook, such as the HP Mini-Note 1000, the Asus Eee PC or the Dell Mini Inspiron 9. For example, the screen size of the U820 is much smaller than typical netbooks, with displays between 7 and 10 inches.

The starting price of $1,049 also means that the U820 would have a difficult time with the “low-cost” classification of other netbooks. The LifeBook U820 has more in common with the Panasonic CF-U1, a high-end but compact notebook that uses the Atom chip but was created more for vertical markets than everyday use.

In addition to the Atom processor, Fujitsu now offers a 64GB SSD option with the LifeBook U820. And the company offers a choice of 60GB or 120GB hard disk drives. For battery life, a user can choose between a two-cell lithium ion battery that offers more than 3 hours of battery life or a four-cell battery that allows the notebook to work for approximately 7 hours. (The larger battery does add weight to the notebook.)

The U820 supports Microsoft Windows Vista and includes navigation and GPS software developed by Garmin Mobile. The laptop also offers 802.11a/b/g and draft-n wireless LAN (WLAN) technologies, with a cellular broadband option coming in 2009.

On Nov. 4, Fujitsu also upgraded its convertible tablet offering with the LifeBook P1630 notebook. This new convertible tablet offers a newer ultra-low-volt Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 processor (1.2GHz) and an 8.9-inch display and weighs about 2.2 pounds. Fujitsu improved the battery life on this notebook: The LifeBook P1630 offers about 6 hours of battery life, compared with the 5 hours that the LifeBook P1620 offered.

Pricing for the LifeBook P6130 starts at about $2,179.

The LifeBook N7010 starts at $1,499.

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Fujitsus-Ultraportable-LifeBook-U820-Notebook-Offers-Intels-Atom-Processor/

Pricing of Intel Nehalem Processor

Anticipating the release of the first processors based on Intel's Nehalem microarchitecture, the first comprehensive reviews of these chips were published on Tom's Hardware, ExtremeTech and other Web sites Nov. 3. The first of these Nehalem-based processors, called the Intel Core i7, will feature four processing cores. Intel will release three versions of the Intel Core i7, which will have clock speeds beginning at 2.66GHz and a starting price of $285. These Intel Core i7 processors will be released by the end of November.

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/First-Images-Pricing-of-Intel-Nehalem-Processor-Released/

Intel Nehalem Processor Prices Revealed

Intel Nehalem Processor Prices Revealed, First Core i7 Chips Due in November

In a series of reviews published today, Intel revealed the prices and clock speeds for the first line of processors that are built on the new Nehalem microarchitecture. The first of these chips, called the Intel Core i7, are slated for release later in November and these chips are designed for gaming machines and PC enthusiasts. The first Intel Core i7 processors will have speeds ranging from 2.66GHz to 3.20GHz and prices starting at about $300.

Prices and clock speeds of the first processors built on Intel’s new Nehalem microarchitecture have now been published in several online reviews as the chip giant prepares to launch the first of these new chips later in November.

In a number of reviews published Nov. 3, including pieces in Tom’s Hardware and ExtremeTech, the first of these new Intel processors, called the Intel Core i7, will have clock speeds starting at 2.66GHz and prices that begin at about $300. (The prices are calculated in quantities of 1,000 units.)

Intel has already announced that the first of these Core i7 processors are scheduled for release later this month, which allows Intel to take advantage of the holiday shopping season. The first chips based on the Intel Nehalem architecture are designed for gaming desktops and for PC enthusiasts.

In a few weeks, Intel will release three Core i7 processors with clock speeds of 2.66GHz, 2.93GHz and 3.20GHz. The prices will range from $284 on the low end to $562 for a mid-range processors and $999 on the high end. Some of the reviews noted that since the Core i7 processors are built on new architecture, PCs will require new motherboards and users will likely have to upgrade the PC’s memory to support newer DDR3 (double data rate 3) memory.

For business buyers and the enterprise, the roll out of these three Intel Core i7 processors offers a window into the other types of processors Intel will offer later this year and into 2009. At its Developer Forum in August, Intel Senior Vice President Pat Gelsinger detailed a strategy that will allow the company to gradually bring new processors into the market during the course of the next 12 months.

After the Core i7 processors, Intel will offers Nehalem-based processors for workstations and single-socket server systems. Other chips for two-socket servers and high-performance computing will follow.

It has been two years since Intel offered new microarchitecture and the company’s engineers have made a number of improvements. The first, and most obvious, is the manufacturing process. The new Nehalem-based processors are built on 45-nanometer manufacturing as opposed to the older, 65-nm process. The new processors reviewed Monday have four processing cores and share 8MB of L3 cache.

One of the most significant improvements with Nehalem is the use of an integrated memory controller. The memory controller, which is the part of the CPU that communicates with the DDR memory chips, is now integrated into the processor die itself, which eliminates the traditional FSB (front side bus). This type of integration will allow for greater levels of performance without increasing the clock speed of the processor, which should also keep the thermal envelope the same as the previous generation.

In the reviews, the three Intel Core i7 processors have thermal envelopes of 130 watts each.

Advanced Micro Devices has manufactured chips with an integrated memory controller for a number of years.

Nehalem will allow Intel to create processors that can scale from two to eight cores.

Each core supports two instructional threads that will then allow the chips to perform several tasks simultaneously. Finally, Intel will also introduce a technology called QuickPath, a high-speed chip-to-chip interconnect technology that will allow the Nehalem family of processors to connect to another component or another chip on the motherboard.

While Nehalem is one of the more significant announcements Intel has made this year, the company is already focusing on 2009. At a conference in December, Intel will begin talking about its next generation of processors build on 32-nm manufacturing.

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Intel-Nehalem-Processor-Prices-Revealed-First-Core-i7-Chips-Due-in-November/

Intel Core i7 Processor Launches Nov. 17

Intel Core i7 Processor Launches Nov. 17 and Enterprise Chips to Follow

Now that Intel has released its new Core i7 processors for reviews, the chip giant is preparing to launch these first chips, which are based on the updated Nehalem microarchitecture, during a Nov. 17 event in San Francisco. While the first Core i7 processors are slated for gaming PCs, Intel is also setting the stage for other processors that will address the needs of the enterprise and business buyers. By late 2008 and early 2009, Intel is planning to introduce another round of processors for workstations and dual-socket processors. Intel Nehalem processors for corporate clients and notebooks will follow in 2009.

Now that the reviews of Intel’s Core i7 processor are in, Intel is planning to launch the first of its chips based on the new Nehalem microarchitecture during a Nov. 17 event in San Francisco.

Although the first of these Nehalem-based processors are designed for high-end desktops and gaming PCs, Intel is preparing to follow up this month’s release with new processors specifically designed for workstations and dual-core server systems, which look to meet the needs of the company’s business buyers and enterprises.

Nehalem processors designed for corporate clients and notebooks will follow in 2009.

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Intel-Core-i7-Processor-Launches-Nov-17-and-Enterprise-Chips-to-Follow/