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Intel needs to build, brand its own iPad, iPhone

Intel is wasting precious time waiting for its "partners" to build the equivalent of an iPad and iPhone.

In the wake of Intel's hiring of a former Palm and Apple executive Mike Bell, Intel should short-circuit the ugly process of watching customers like Hewlett-Packard and Acer prattle about Intel-based tablets, then do nothing. (And a Nokia MeeGo tablet, for example, doesn't count either: that's a Nokia brand.)

Friday's announcement stated that Bell "in his new role...will lead a team with the charter to build breakthrough smartphone reference designs with the explicit intent … Read more

CNET's back-to-school 2010 retail desktop and laptop review roundup

With the back-to-school season upon us, many laptop and desktop shoppers are looking for a new system suitable for dorm room living or high school homework. We've hit the well-stocked store shelves of brick-and-mortar retail stores to find boxed versions of popular PCs, from entry-level systems starting at less than $300, to $1,000-plus high-end multimedia and gaming rigs.

These specific retail models are similar to those you'd be able to configure online from companies such as Dell and HP, but they may have slightly different names and features. Also worth noting, thanks to frequent retail discounts, they … Read more

Report: iPad, tablets to cannibalize 'Wintel' laptops

Sales of Windows-Intel laptops will take a hit because of iPad and tablet growth, according to research notes released by Barclays Capital.

Sales of the iPad and similar tablets will jump next year, with some of that heady growth coming at the expense of Netbooks and low-end notebooks, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing a series of research notes sent out by Barclays Capital.

Tablet sales are forecast to reach at least 15 million units this year, jumping to 28 million in 2011, Barclays said. "We believe the initial phase of the tablet surge will cannibalize a portion … Read more

Hands-on with Gateway's LT32 premium Netbook

Netbooks have settled into a comfortable set of stock components, offering basic PC functionality for prices unheard of even a few years ago. The typical setup of a 10-inch display, Intel Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and Windows 7 Starter is easy to find for as little as $299, and more than adequate for many tasks, from e-mail to Web surfing.

But those low, low prices mean PC makers are eager to upsell, and a handful of Netbook-plus systems have turned up, with larger HD displays, more RAM, and even better CPUs and graphics capabilities, such as the Asus Eee PC 1201, which pairs a bigger screen with Nvidia's ION GPU for what some call a "Premium Netbook" experience.

The latest system to offer a little more Netbook for a little more money is the Gateway LT32. This 11.6-inch laptop skips the typical Intel Atom for an AMD Athlon Neo II K125 processor. While still a single core chip, AMD has always positioned the Neo as a better performer than the Atom, and during initial anecdotal hands-on use, that certainly seems to be the case. The LT32 also includes ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 graphics--still not a discrete GPU, but a small step up from the integrated Intel graphics found in most Netbooks.

Almost as important to the end user experience is the 2GB of RAM (double what's in a typical Netbook) and Windows 7 Home Premium operating system instead of the more common Windows 7 Starter Edition.

The design of the LT32 is reminiscent of the Acer Ferrari One, an excellent 11-inch Premium Netbook from earlier in 2010. That system was even better, with a dual-core AMD CPU and 4GB of RAM, but it also cost nearly $600, putting it in solid mainstream laptop territory. … Read more

HP debuts Mini 100e: you know, for kids

Suddenly, it seems like everyone's trying to get in on the affordable educational laptop game. Not so long ago, we took a look at the new Intel Convertible Classmate initiative, which didn't have a specific product so much as a global push for manufacturing durable kid-oriented tablet Netbooks. The Dell Latitude 2100 also explored this territory last year.

HP has now entered the game too with the HP Mini 100e, a thick, ruggedized variation on their existing Netbook series. Its price seems to be one of the chief advantages, coming in at $299. Other products such as the … Read more

Start-up launches DOE-backed green server

Start-up SeaMicro has launched a green server based on Intel's power-sipping Atom processor. The company is backed by about $25 million in venture capital and a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

SeaMicro's SM10000 packs 512 Intel Atom processors, storage, interconnect technology, and server management into a relatively compact 17.5-inch-high server. The size is referred to as 10 RU, or rack unit (1 RU equals 1.75 inches). This design saves lots of energy, reducing power consumption by 75 percent, according to SeaMicro.

In a radical departure from standard server architectures, the start-up selected Intel's Atom, a processor most commonly used in Netbooks--tiny laptops. The chip was designed by Intel to be its most power-efficient chip.

Atom, however, was not designed with servers in mind, though SeaMicro believes it has found a niche. "In the Internet data center, the challenge is to handle millions of relatively small, independent tasks like those needed for searching, social networking, viewing web pages, and checking email," SeaMicro said in a statement.

SeaMicro claims there is a mismatch between Internet server design and current central processing units or CPUs. "Volume servers failed to adapt to this fundamental change and remain optimized for (for more traditional server tasks). This mismatch between volume servers and the now dominant Internet workload is the primary cause of the rapid increase in server power consumption and is responsible for the multi-billion dollar power problem in the data center," SeaMicro said.

Three primary technology innovations define the system, according to SeaMicro:

Smaller circuit board: A patented technique in CPU I/O (input/output) virtualization, which reduces non-CPU power draw by eliminating 90 percent of the components from the motherboard. This CPU I/O virtualization allows SeaMicro to shrink a server motherboard from the size of a pizza box to the size of a credit card. Power-efficient interconnect: A supercomputer-style interconnect fabric that can link 512 mini-motherboards into a single system, reducing power draw and space. This fabric provides 1.28 terabits per-second throughput,… Read more

Laptop and tablet highlights from Computex 2010

There are many intriguing new laptops, tablets, and related mobile computing devices currently on display at the Computex 2010 trade show in Taiwan. Keep in mind, however, that many of these are either proof-of-concept prototypes or products unlikely to ever see the light of day in the U.S.

With that caveat, here are a some notable show highlights (a few of which have the word "pad" as part of their names), gleaned from the coverage of our colleagues at CNET Asia.

New Intel processors: More powerful Netbooks, what else?

It's always a bit hard to tell just from gazing at CPU specs what exactly we'll see in coming laptops, but Intel's leaked road map of upcoming laptop processors, which provides information on products through 2011, does provide a few hints and interesting notes.

Intel's various geographic code names and ultra-detailed spec charts can get a little sleep-inducing for the average consumer. To boil it down, here are the points that seem most eye-opening, and that could truly pave the way for some cooler laptops down the road.

Things to be excited about in 2010:

Dual-core … Read more

Intel, Qualcomm go dual-core for small devices

Both Intel and Qualcomm are announcing new dual-core processors for small devices, upping the performance potential for ultra-mobile computing.

Intel said Tuesday at the Computex conference in Taiwan that it has begun producing dual-core Atom processors for Netbooks, a product first for Intel. New Intel technology will enable "very, very thin form factors with dual-core Atom," Matthew Parker, general manager of Intel's Atom client division, said in a phone interview Friday. Parker said future Netbooks will get as thin as a half an inch (see photo).

Netbooks are small laptops that weigh less than 3 pounds and have screens that typically top out at about 10-inches diagonally. Parker said Intel specification guidelines will remain the same and have not been modified to accommodate larger designs, such as 12-inch Netbooks, as some have speculated.

Dual-core is all about better performance. "What dual core will bring is the ability to have a more responsive experience. You can video conference with our single-core product, but with the dual-core product you'll have better multiparty video conferencing," he said, citing one example. Intel is not yet revealing the product name for the chip but expects Netbooks using these procossors to be available by winter holiday season.

At Computex, Intel is also unveiling its "Oak Trail" technology, which is a system-on-a-chip Atom design optimized for thin tablets… Read more