Asus's Netbook May Sport Google's Open Source OS 'Android'

Asustek Computer planning to releases its netbook sporting Google's open source Android operating system.

In an interview, head of Asus's Eee PC division, Samson Hu, said that the company has allotted a group of engineers to create an Android netbook which is expected to get complete later this year. Thou, it is not clear that company will make it commercial, Hu added.

Asus has a lot of experience over netbook field. Company also carries a good knowledge with Android, since it is working with its Garmin to develop a line of smartphone, and some of them will run on Google's Android.

Way back in 2007, when Android was introduced, it was said that search giant is trying to expand its reach in mobile phone technology. Till date only T-mobile G1 is a handset which runs on Android, but things are going to change soon because later this year many smartphones companies like HTC, Motorola and other major cell phone manufactures are expected to carry Android in their handset.

Currently smartphones are ruling the market, and it is Google how wants to get its OS in this wild run. Google also wants to get its OS in other machines like set-top boxes, mobile Internet devices and netbooks. Archos is already prepping to put the Linux-based OS on an Internet-connected tablet, Nvidia will support Android on its Tegra chipset, and Freescale Semiconductor recently added support for Google's OS to its ARM-based processors

Samsung's Omnia HD A Heavyduty MultiMedia Smartphone

Samsung has brought in a touch screen smartphones with strong multimedia functions at MWC in Barcelona.

The smartphone we are going to talk about is called as Omnia HD which is as similar as previous Samsung handset called Omnia, as per name Omnia HD is quite capable of recording videos at 720p resolution, which means high quality. Though, its 3.7 inch wide screen cannot display HD with its 360 by 640 resolution, but to over come this company provided a HDMI port to play back these videos on any HD stuffs.

Camera in handset is powerful with 8 megapixels as well as autofocus and flash. Some excellent features like geotagging and smile, face and blink detecting technology, making it very handy. Not only this, handset all provides a on-board software which enable users to edit there photos and videos.

Omnia HD is fueled by Symbian S60 5.0, therefore it became first handset to use this operating system. Symbian designed its OS for touch input, and handset will use TouchWiz user interface which will enable users to enter to different widgets by just one-click method. Provided widgets are like stock, whether, news, and other Web based information.

Connectivity options on the Omnia HD are what you'd expect from a high-end handset, including Wi-Fi, 3G, and Bluetooth. Its GPS chip can use cellular data for assisted GPS functions such as location-based services, and navigation.

A robust multimedia player is provided in handset to hit the deck hard and will play all audio and video of user choice. A built in office document viewer for professionals. To store all this multimedia files, the handset comes with 8 GB or 16 GB (depends upon customer choice) of memory. A microSD slot to transfer its data.

Omnia HD will ship-out in second quarter of the current year. Regarding price Samsung already cleared it will cost higher than the existing Omnia smartphone.

64 GB In Your Pocket, New Flash Memory Technology By SanDisk

SanDisk has announced a substantial advancement in flash memory technology which was introduced in International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.

This new flash chip enables you to carry 64 GB of data right in your pocket, chip size is just about fingernail. And all this is done by storing four bits per cell, where as in standard one or two bits per cell.

"Developing a four-bit-per-cell chip is a massive challenge, and we consider this to be a major breakthrough," says Khandker Quader, senior vice president of memory technology and product development at SanDisk.

In recent years, flash memory has become backbone of latest electronics industry and it is been used in all most all gadgets, like laptops, gaming consoles, cameras and in many more stuffs.

SanDisk came with whole new algorithms that runs on a flash memory chip controller which makes this device ahead than current chips. This algorithms are significant factors in reliably cramming in four bits per cell.

"We've introduced a number of key concepts that allow us to manage the memory side of it," says Quader. "The complexity of this distribution is so much different than what you're doing with two bits per cell."

Finally Nokia E75, E55 Unveiled And Offically Launched

Now, finally after months of leaking images and confusion regrading model number, it is clear that Nokia E75 was the E75.

Company unveiled its latest model at Mobile World Congress, E75 was not only the model to come in light Nokia also showed a new model number which is E55, and will available in market very soon. Both machines are set to come out with Nokia's new email user interface, even devices are lased with Nokia Messaging to enhanced corporate email communication.

As per looks, the E75 looks similar to the model number e&1 but a slide out QWERTY keyboard make a difference in both the model, where as QWERTY keyboard makes easy to type emails in much easier way! Thou, adding a keyboard makes it a thicker a bit, but after viewing phone packs this thickness can be consider which make this smartphone more competitive.

A display of 2.4 inch QVGA screen, alike to the E71. A 3.2 built in camera, which also support a 3.5mm headphone jack which can blow your mind, built in VPN, HSDA, 802.11 b/g, EGPRS, Bluetooth, phone is backing up with a 16 GB microSD card. When it comes to price, the E75 gets another significant advantage, the model number is available for 375 Euros only (in Indian currency, price will be about Rs. 23,000 only).

Along with E75, the another phone which is announced is the E55, a slightly grown-up version of E51. Like the E71, the E55 also carries the similar features which sports a 2.4 inch QVGA screen, a 3.2 megapixel camera, 3.5 mm headphone jack, 802.11 b/g, EGPRS and Bluetooth 2.0. Some other cool features are also integrated in model like Nokia Maps and assisted GPS. A price of 265 Euros (about Rs. 16,000) is expected to cost your pocket if you want this piece in your pocket!

Company says device are expected to ship out later this summer...

XFX's Radeon HD 4870 X2 Treat For Elite Gamers

XFX had announced to launch an graphic card for gamers called as XFX Radeon HD 4870 X2. XFX's HD 4870 X2 will join the Radeon HD powered 4000 graphics card series. Thou, price and shipment of card is not unveiled yet.


XFX Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphic card comes with 800x2(1600) stream processors, it also offers 2.4 TeraFLOPS of graphics processing power. The graphic card has core clocked at 750 MHz, 2GB GDDR5 memory clocked at 3.6 GHz and will offer wider 230 GB/sec memory bandwidth over 512-bit memory interface.

A resolution of 2560x1600 is supported by new graphic card, which is capable of running with Microsoft Direct X 10.1 based games and compatible with Direct X 10. The HD movie buffs can make the best of Accelerated Video Transcoding for converting H.264 and MPEG-2 videos 19x times faster while full 1080p files can be encoded to H.264 1.8x times faster than real-time.

It is say that XFX comes with life-time warranty on its cards but there is no official announcement from company. As graphic card is introduced by a well known graphic manufacturer, we can guess the price will be high.

Earlier introduced, Sapphire's Radeon HD 4870 X2 which gave a good impression with its blazing performance but lagged when overclocked. So XFX, kept this drawback in mind and developed this new graphic card.

40-nm Technology Will Available End Of The Year: Samsung

On Wednesday, Samsung announced that it will start selling its DRAM chip by the end of this year which is built with new 40-nm technology, which is anticipated to consume much less power than the current deployed memories chips in PCs.

With the help of this next-generation technology, Samsung is expecting to regain its lead in current economy downturn ever seen. Samsung is moving fast to bring it thinner circuitry memory chips and sustain its lead in this category.

Samsung is also planning to implies its 40-nm technology for the mass production of 2 GB DDR3 memory chips as well as for 4 GB DDR3 memory chips by the end of this year. Manufacturing cost of 40 nm chips are less expensive in compare of DDR2 components so we can expect low cost memory chips in future which are scheduled to ship in 2010.

In compare of 50 nm technology, new design chips consumes 30% less power, which means 'green technology'.
DRAM chips usually deliver system memory for desktops and laptops, as well as can be implemented for mobile device and gaming consoles. Thou Samsung has suffered some financial setbacks as a result of a market glut that has sent prices plummeting and inventories soaring.

In December, Gartner lowered its 2009 estimates for worldwide semiconductor revenue. The analyst firm expects the market to see a 16.3% decline to $219.2 billion. The drop would mark the first time the industry has suffered back-to-back years of declining sales. Last year, revenue fell by 4.4%, according to Gartner.

Need For Speed Is Gearing Up In Three Different Directions

Electronics Arts, well known as EA, is ready to spread its 15 year old racing series Need for Speed in three new games into three different genres -- simulation, arcade and action racing.

"It's all about crafting different games for different audiences," said Keith Munro, EA marketing vice president. "The 'Need for Speed' brand is quite powerful. It has great recognition, even outside of gaming. When we talked to consumers about what the brand meant to them, we realized that it could be stretched to new limits on different platforms."

A collaboration has took place between Need for Speed creator EA Black Box and Slightly Mad Studios for the whole new series Need for Speed Shift development and for Need for Speed World Online EA Black Box worked with EA Singapore. Company said Black Box will continue to work on a new action driving game, despite recent company-wide layoffs.

"They will still be very much involved in the development of 'Need for Speed' products," Munro said. "Over the years, we've asked the Black Box team to deliver a new 'Need for Speed' game every year. We've gone to a couple of new studios to deliver next fall's games to inject freshness into the category and give the Black Box team time to retrench."

The new games are expected to be out later this current year, Need for Speed Shift, simulation racing for the PS 3 and Xbox 360. Second, Need for Speed World Online, a multiplayer action driving game for the PC; and third but not the least Need for Speed Nitro, an arcade style racing game which is developed by EA Montreal for The Nintendo Wii and DS.

"In the past, our 'Need for Speed' games have done very well on all platforms," Munro said. "We just think we can do better with this new plan. We actually have the opportunity to devote an entirely new studio and development team to the creation of a from-the-ground-up Nintendo-only 'Need for Speed' game. We didn't have those resources available before."