ARM

To thank him for letting them spend the last two hours of their workweek playing video games on the company dime, Kevin Grinnell's employees often single him out and shoot him in the head.

To be fair, the employees at Grinnell Computers aren't firing real weapons at their boss but are instead releasing the stresses of their week in a multiplayer online game known as Combat Arms.

Most Fridays for the last couple of months, the six employees of the Beaumont, Texas-based company have been encouraged to spend from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. blasting away … Read more

Updated at 12:45 a.m. PDT

Microsoft's Zune HD will use one of the most powerful chips to go into a portable media player yet: Nvidia's multicore Tegra processor.

Tegra packs two processor cores based on intellectual property from U.K.-based chip designer ARM. One is the main processor--based on the ARM11 core--which runs the operating system. Tegra's defining feature, however, is an additional Nvidia GeForce graphics chip.

"Nvidia brings powerful graphics to the portable media player. This is a unique capability," said Jeff Orr, senior analyst for mobile content at ABI Research. … Read more

Updated at 6:40 p.m. PDT, adding Microsoft Windows 7 and Apple Snow Leopard discussion.

Nvidia on Thursday posted a smaller loss than the year-earlier period but the graphics chip supplier is still grappling with costs related to a chip defect first addressed by the company last July.

Shares of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company were up in after-hours trading.

Nvidia reported a second-quarter loss of $105.3 million, or 19 cents a share, better than the year-earlier period when it posted a loss of $120.9 million, or 22 cents a share.

Revenue was $776.5 million, … Read more

Intel is endorsing Google's future Chrome operating system, but the chipmaker is being cautious as it already has a successful strategy supplying chips for Windows-based mobile devices.

Last week, makers of processors based on the ARM design, such as Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, were quick to cheer the news of Google's Chrome, which is slated to first appear on Netbooks in 2010.

"We're thrilled about the news that Google just issued," Ramesh Iyer, TI's head of worldwide business development for mobile computing, said last week. "You can see how simple the user interface … Read more

Where's your comfort zone? Windows, Mac, Linux? An unintellectual, emotional attachment to an operating environment often determines what consumers buy and may determine whether Google Chrome can ultimately compete with Windows.

In the consumer laptop space, specifically Netbooks, there isn't much hope for a Linux-based operating system like Google Chrome in the near term. So, first the bad news.

Market researcher iSuppli released a report Friday that I agree with. It begins with the usual, saying that Google's Linux-based Chrome operating system sets the stage for a battle of the Titans (Google versus Microsoft). But what it … Read more

In a recent and so-far relatively obscure video, VMware CEO Paul Maritz offers, at times, a sharp critique of the Intel chip architecture and the challenges of getting it into cell phones.

At the TiEcon 2009 conference in mid-May, Maritz gave a brief oral history of the Intel x86 chip architecture. He noted its shortcomings and the challenges presented by ARM, the chip design that powers most of the world's cell phones and will power Netbooks running on Google's just-announced Chrome operating system.

The video has been made available by TechPulse360.

"Consumer devices came along and there … Read more

The iPhone, of course, is more than the sum of its parts, but the cost of individual components adds up--to $178.96, to be exact.

A new analysis by iSuppli details the cost of the iPhone 3GS and the motley collection of chips inside.

The entry-level (16GB) version of the iPhone 3GS carries a BOM (bill of materials) cost of $172.46 and a manufacturing expense of $6.50, for a total of $178.96, said Andrew Rassweiler, director and principal analyst, teardown services, for iSuppli, in a statement.

Service providers are paying more for the low-end iPhone 3G S than the original iPhone 3G, according to Rassweiler. "Although the retail price of the 16GB iPhone 3GS is $199, the same as for the 8GB version of the original iPhone 3G, the actual price of the phone paid by the service provider is considerably higher, reflecting the common wireless industry practice of subsidizing the upfront cost of a mobile phone and then making a profit on subscriptions," he said.

And what are the major cost drivers? The 16GB flash memory chip is the priciest at $24--and reflects the rising cost of flash chips due to supply constraints, according to iSuppli. This part is also available from Samsung. So there could be some second-sourcing (sourcing the part from a second chip supplier) in the future.

The next rung in the cost ladder is the 3.5-inch display module and touch-screen assembly, at $19.95 and $16, respectively.

Below this, is the main Samsung applications processor. Priced at $14.46, it is the fourth most costly component in the iPhone 3GS.… Read more

Without Rafe and Brian Cooley on the show, we felt it was safe to have French tech podcaster Patrick Beja on the show to talk tech. Don't worry, he speaks in English for this show. We talk about the iPhone phenomena, the poor penetration of broadband in the US, and how HD-DVD is still beating Blu-ray.

T-Mobile announces second Google phone http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10269459-94.html

Google to cut China porn results http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8112971.stm… Read more

Microsoft has confirmed that the Nvidia "Tegra" chip is inside the upcoming Zune HD, a big win for Nvidia.

This was reported earlier at Engadget and follows reports earlier this week.

"There's been a lot of chatter about us possibly putting the Nvidia Tegra chip in the Zune HD," Matt Akers, software development engineer in test at Microsoft, said in a June 19 podcast. "Well, we're going to go ahead and confirm that. Yes, the Zune HD does have the Tegra chip in it."

He added: "So much better battery life, … Read more