Don’t want to be obsolete before launch

Most laptops and netbooks today come with a SDHC flash memory card reader. One of the major benefits of standardization is the ubiquity it allows. Consumers can take a SD or SDHC card from a digital camera or camcorder and transfer the data quickly to a laptop, enabling them to edit and/or email their media files easily.

The new SDXC standard announced earlier this year will begin to replace SDHC in 2010. The new memory cards will be able to support speeds as high as 300MB/s and capacities as large as 2TB. Best of all, the new standard is backwards compatible, meaning that SDXC readers will be able to read SDHC, SD, and MMC memory cards.

In order to prepare for this, laptop manufacturers are looking to replace SDHC readers in their laptops with SDXC readers. DailyTech has received information that Lenovo, HP, and Dell are actively working on laptops with SDXC support, but no information is available yet from Apple or how soon SDXC will make its way into MacBooks.

Intel will soon introduce new Westmere-based 32nm Arrandale mobile CPUs, which will feature integrated graphics on the same package. Laptops using the new chips are expected to be cheaper and use less power, greatly extended battery life. Laptop manufacturers are expecting brisk sales from the new designs, which must last until the Sandy Bridge generation of mobile CPUs is ready in 2011.

The issue is complicated by the fact that many SDHC readers are connected internally through a USB 2.0 bus, which does not have enough bandwidth to support SDXC. Connections for SDXC must be made instead through the PCIe bus.

The first products using SDXC are expected to be shown at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in January.

*This article is written by Jansen Ng.

Office 2010 in six version glory coming next summer

The most widely used productivity application on the planet is Microsoft Office. Microsoft makes the lion’s share of its money from sales of Office and its Windows operating system.

Windows 7 hit the market recently and has been racking up impressive sales numbers. As of mid-November, Windows 7 had been able to grab 4% of the PC market. It took Windows Vista months to reach the same point.

A new version of Office called Office 2010 is also set to launch — Neowin reports that the launch is scheduled for June 2010. The new version of Office will support ribbons for all products and a new Version of Office for Mac users will launch some time in 2010.

In all, six different versions of Office will be launching. Perhaps the most important to users on a budget will be the free version offering Word and Excel with ads to support the cost and limited functionality. Exactly what functions will be limited is unknown at this time.

Other version of the Office 2010 suite will include Starter, Home and Student, Home and Business, Standard, Professional, and Professional Plus. The Professional Plus version is available in public beta right now.

Applications available in Office 2010 include Access, Excel, InfoPath Designer, InfoPath Filler, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, SharePoint workspace, Word, and Communicator. Microsoft is also updating Visio and Project to 2010 versions, neither of which are included with any Office 2010 version.

Users who have a TechNet or MSDN subscription should be able to get the full version of Office 2010 ahead of the rumored June launch date. The beta version of Office 2010 available now does require a license key from Microsoft.

*This article is written by Shane McGlaun.

Your choice of higher speed or lower cost

Samsung Electronics is the largest NAND flash memory manufacturer in the world, accounting for 38.5 percent of the global market in Q3 of 2009. All of that money helps when conducting research and development into new technologies which are critical for maintaining that lead.

The company is making two NAND flash major announcements that will significantly affect consumers. The first is that it has started mass production of 30nm-class 32Gb Multi-Level Cell NAND flash memory with an asynchronous DDR interface. Samsung uses the term 30nm-class to refer to its manufacturing processes, which could range from 32nm to 34nm.

Single-Level Cell NAND flash has traditionally been faster than MLC NAND, but Samsung’s new DDR MLC NAND chip reads data at a very fast 133 Mbps. It is designed to replace the company’s single data rate MLC NAND, which has an overall read performance of 40Mbps.
The process is yielding well enough that Samsung has already shipped its initial production run to major OEMs.

“With the new DDR MLC NAND, double data rate transmission can be achieved without increasing power consumption, giving designers a lot more latitude in introducing diverse CE devices.” said Soo-In Cho, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Memory Division at Samsung Electronics.

Samsung’s 30nm-class SDR NAND flash was rejected by many SSD manufacturers earlier this year, stating that it was far too slow for use in SSDs. “Of course every transition to a new process has its problems,” stated one source who requested anonymity. “We just weren’t expecting it to be this slow”.

Although Samsung put the blame on NAND flash controllers that SSD makers were using, many of those companies reported that they had overcome similar but less severe problems with Toshiba’s 34nm NAND flash memory.

Nevertheless, Samsung is hopeful that its new DDR NAND flash will help satisfy the need for speed from SSD makers. The new flash gives added urgency to new SSDs that can support 6Gbps SATA.

The company expects the new asynchronous DDR MLC NAND to be used in SSDs for PCs, USB 3.0 flash drives, high-speed SDXC memory cards, personal media players, and car navigation systems.

“Samsung’s accelerated push toward providing memory solutions at much higher speeds will enable faster introduction of high-performance mobile devices that deliver added convenience and greater value to consumers,” Mr. Cho added.

In a second announcement, Samsung states that it has begun the industry’s first volume production of 3-bit MLC NAND flash chips using 30nm-class process technology.

The first run of chips will be used in NAND flash modules accompanied by exclusive Samsung 3-bit NAND flash controllers to produce 8GB micro Secure Digital (microSD) cards.

“Introducing cost-efficient, 30nm-class 3-bit technology widens our NAND memory solution base to make NAND even more enticing for increasingly diverse market applications,” stated Mr. Cho.

Although 3-bit MLC has usually been slower and been capable of fewer read-write cycles than traditional 2-bit MLC, the 50 percent increase in capacity will allow Samsung to offer new NAND flash products at much lower prices. This could help lower prices of flash based devices like SSDs, which have increased in price as NAND flash prices doubled over the last six months.

“Our 3-bit NAND memory will support the development of more cost-competitive, high-density consumer electronics storage solutions,” Mr. Cho continued.

With new options for higher speed or lower cost, Samsung is adding choices for OEMs that will expand the overall flash market. Expect new SSDs and SDXC cards as these chips make their way into consumer products next year.

According to market research firm Gartner Dataquest, the global NAND flash memory market is forecast to be worth $13.8 billion this year, with sustained growth allowing it to reach $23.6 billion by 2012.

*This article is written by Jansen Ng.

Intel, AMD kiss and make up

Intel and AMD have been involved in long-standing dispute over intellectual property and antitrust issues. Intel was fined $1.45B by the EU for its anticompetitive practices and last week, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel.
Cuomo had rather harsh words for Intel, stating, “Rather than compete fairly, Intel used bribery and coercion to maintain a stranglehold on the market. Intel’s actions not only unfairly restricted potential competitors, but also hurt average consumers who were robbed of better products and lower prices.”

However, Intel and AMD now appear to be making amends. The pair issued a joint statement today which reads, “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.”

As a part of the settlement, Intel will pay AMD $1.25 billion, AMD will drop all of its pending lawsuits against Intel, and the pair will enter into a new 5-year cross license agreement. In addition, Intel will “abide by a set of business practice provisions” in the future.

AMD CEO Dirk Meyer today championed the agreement, stating, “Today, I am pleased to announce the last major component of that transformation – in the form of a transparent and public agreement with Intel to create a level playing field in the x86 processor industry – taking us one big step closer to achieving our bold vision.”

Meyer continued, adding, “Today marks the beginning of a new era… one that confirms that the game has changed for AMD. It is an important milestone for us, for our customers, our partners, and most important – for consumers and businesses worldwide. In addition, it represents the culmination many years of litigation and regulatory engagement.”

Following the announcement, AMD shares are up 25 percent to $6.61 while Intel is up almost a percentage point to $20.05 as of 10:00 AM EST.

*This article is written by Brandon Hill.

Emue Technologies has unveiled the next generation of its anti-fraud credit card. The device combines a world first embedded 14-segment E Ink display with a 12-button numeric keypad, microprocessor and, despite being the same size as a conventional card, a battery designed to last for three years.

To authenticate a phone or online transaction, the user enters the transaction information and their PIN with the keypad to generate a one-time-only authentication code that appears on the E-Ink display.

The company has also developed the first Authentication Application for the iPhone along with Java-based mobile applets.

Visa announced earlier this year that it was testing the company’s embedded authentication technology in an effort to combat card-not-present (CNP) fraud and the companies have been working closely together over the past 18 months to develop the Visa CodeSure solution which is currently being piloted by banks in the UK, Switzerland, Italy and Israel.

The latest version is being shown on the Visa Europe stand at the Cartes Digital Security and Smart Technologies Expo in Paris this week.

New OS is specifically geared towards the netbook market

A radical new day has dawned for the operating system.

Today Google finally aired its long awaited Chrome Operating System. The operating system was detailed at a press conference starting at 1 p.m. EST, and the open source code was posted online just before the start of the presentation. The new operating system brings a dramatically different look and perspective to the market and just may give Microsoft and OS X some tough competition by reinventing a tired old wheel — the operating system — offering the first laptop/desktop OS built around the browser and web applications.

A Google engineer set the mood for the presentation announcing in the introduction, “Chrome is the foundation of everything we’re doing here.”

According to Google, its Chrome browser has garnered 40 million users who use it as their primary browser. Google is already beating Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 browser by 30 percent in Javascript speed tests, according to the company (we confirm this claim in our browser benchmark series, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4). That success, in part, inspired Google to make the jump to the OS market. With the Chrome browser coming to Linux and OS X platforms, Google thought — why not make a full Linux distribution built around the Chrome browser and web applications?

Google’s Chrome OS is indeed built entirely around the company’s browser. For that reason, it naturally uses HTML 5 to provide it with rich graphical content and other advanced programming content. HTML 5 is used for graphics, video/audio playback, threading, threads, notifications, real-time communication, and storage — all critical factors to enabling games and productivity application.

The company is very enthused about both the netbook and tablet movements, as they have spawned cheap, full-featured internet devices, perfect for Google’s web-app based model. Google says its OS is built for netbooks and tablets and is based on three principles — “speed”, “simplicity”, and “security”.

Where many Linux distributions use some form of multiple desktops, Google’s OS instead uses multiple Windows — each a Chrome browser, essentially. Each browser can have multiple web applications open simultaneously as tabs — similar to PC-side applications in a standard operating system model. Ironically, the company’s competitors, in this respect, may fuel the upcoming OS’s success by their decision to release web apps — one example of this is Microsoft, which recently released a web application version of Office. Describes Google, “Turns out, Microsoft Office launched a killer app for Chrome OS.”

The browser window allows you to find files stored locally on your machine just like Windows Explorer or other file dialog windows. When you click to open them, though, rather than loading a stored application, it launches a web one. Media from attached devices such as Droid phones, pops up in a new tab and is displayed/played.

Another intriguing decision by Google is to only offer solid state drive netbooks in its upcoming Chrome OS models, soon to be released by its partners. Google says its goal is to make the computer feel like a TV — with an “instant-on” aesthetic.

As far as security, woes of OS X and Windows will not be problems on Google OS, according to the company. It says that under its web application model no app is trusted, so the potential for system compromise is dramatically reduced. It should be interesting to see if that holds true in practice. While that seems unlikely, even if Google can simply reduce the rate of attacks/vulnerabilities, it may be on to something, though. The Chrome browser’s track record thus far has been sterling, so its hard not to buy into Google’s rhetoric for the time being.

Under the new OS, data is stored as read-only and is only able to be accessed by a small list of trusted apps which are signed and verified. Each app is run in its own sandbox. And user data is synced and backed up on Google’s cloud (which may be an unsettling thought to some). Despite the privacy concerns, this means if you lose your netbook, you won’t lose your data — which is certainly a welcome development for anyone who has ever lost a laptop.

Google will launch Chrome OS netbooks in the holiday season 2010; tablets and laptops running Chrome OS will launch at a later date. Chrome’s demo at the presentation was running on an Eee PC, so that seems one likely target. As mentioned, the upcoming hardware will feature SSDs and it will use 802.11n wireless cards, for now. For now developers can download test builds and work with them. Android apps should run on the OS, to the delight of the mobile OS’s burgeoning developer community. The OS lacks a Silverlight plugin option currently. It can be run in virtual machines.

Overall, if there’s one thing made clear by the launch to developers and Google’s presentation, it’s that Google is looking to drastically rethink the consumer operating system. Google drives this point home, stating, “We are trying to offer a choice for users. The model of computing we’re trying to advance is fundamentally different.”

*This article is written by Jason Mick.

The Finger Touching phone concept is perfect if you’re not brave enough to have a phone embedded under your skin, yet still want to look trendy and futuristic. Granted you’d look dorky talking into your hand, hologram buttons or not.

The idea is that the phone’s keypad is projected onto your hand and the “buttons” separated by knuckles. Once you dial, you would hold your hand to your head a la the international “call me” pose. It’s a neat concept, but somehow it just wouldn’t fit into the Bionic Body Shop. Maybe the Cyborgism QVC Channel.

*This article is written by Rosa Golijan.

With Apple’s new wireless Magic Mouse grabbing headlines this month, and innovations such as the multi-functional GlideTV navigator and Nortek Duplus mini wireless mouse being rolled-out almost weekly, it seems the days of the humble mouse are long gone. Enter Intelligent Design’s titanium laser mouse - a hand-crafted device that is anything but humble (or cheap) and while it doesn’t have the smarts of Apple’s new offering, its certainly lays down a challenge on the design front.

The ID mouse is Bluetooth enabled and is constructed from hand-formed grade one titanium and high quality plastic resin. It features a neodymium scroll wheel and is suitable for both left and right-handed users. Powered by two AAA batteries it is available in black or white and has a three-button layout.

*This article is written by Jude Garvey.

Spurred on by the release of Windows 7, the number of screens on the market offering the benefits of multi-touch functionality has jumped significantly in recent times. Acer, HP and Toshiba have released multi-touch notebooks and we’ve also seen multi-touch creep into the desktop and all-in-one PC arenas. Dell has had multi-touch PCs in its sights for a while and recently released the rugged Latitude multi-touch tablet. Now there’s the Dell SX2210T – a 21.5 inch, 16:9 widescreen multi-touch monitor with full HD and integrated webcam.

The Windows 7 compatible optical touch screen caters for single-touch (Flick, Scroll, Tap, Drag) and multi-touch (Grab, Rotate, Double –Tap, Zoom In/ Out) interaction and can be used with a stylus or pointer as well as fingers.

The 2MP integrated webcam has two microphones and other key specs include a 1920 x 1080 resolution (at 60Hz), typical response time of 2ms, optimal brightness of 220cd/m2, 50,000:1 (max.) dynamic contrast ratio, 160 degree viewing angle. Connectivity is via Analog (VGA), DVI-D (HDCP), HDMI plus audio in/out and 4 x USB 2.0 ports.

*This article is written by Jude Garvey.

The incredible range of USB peripherals available and the shortage of free ports on many machines – particularly laptops – means that a USB hub is practically a necessity if you don’t want to waste precious time plugging and unplugging devices. Sanwa’s 12-port offering doesn’t quite match Brando’s effort in the number of ports, but is definitely the more eye-catching of the two when loaded up with devices. Its circular design means that it might be ok for those rare occasions when you need a high tech table centerpiece, but will likely have cables running every which way on the desk when fully loaded.

*This article is written by Darren Quick.