Intel\’s Two New SSDs with 60 percent less cost and better performance
3 Comments on Intel\’s Two New SSDs with 60 percent less cost and better performance
The yawning gap between SSD performance and HDD performance is behind the push to SSD-specific interfaces on I/O hubs now, like with Intel\'s upcoming Pine Trail platform. The Intel new drives boast a 25 percent reduction in read latency, which was already about 60x speed of an average hard disk write performance also doubled with this new generation.
The two new SSDs are X25M SATA parts weighing in at 80GB and 160GB, and they\'re meant to replace Intel\'s existing X25M drives in those capacities, but at 60 percent less cost and with better performance. The 80GB X25-M is $225 in lots of 1,000 (down from $595), and the 160GB is $440 (from $945). That\'s some serious discounting, and it may well drive even more SSD uptake in the coming quarters despite the ongoing IT spending crunch.
Intel has announced two new solid state disk drives made on its leading-edge 34nm process. It\'s also the case that the 34nm transition was in the works well before the financial crisis. So Intel has gone ahead and brought that capacity online and they\'re going to use it to make what everyone wants right now i.e., cheaper storage, better performances, etc.
Noticeably absent from the announcement is a high-capacity 320GB drive, which many were expecting. A 320GB drive would be an expensive, premium product of the sort that nobody is buying right now so it is not tapped-out consumers. So instead of trying to sell a high-end SSD, Intel took advantage by cut the cost of making its existing flash products so that it could lower the price and sell more of them into a price-sensitive market.
Now Intel could even be making a bit more profit on each drive even while passing considerable savings on to customers.
Read More Windows 7 RTM Release Date
Microsoft\'s hardware and software partners will receive copies of Windows 7 RTM starting Aug 16 or Aug 23 2009, depending on which partner program they\'re assigned. OEMs or original equipment manufacturers in other words, computer makers will have Windows 7 in hand approximately two days after Microsoft\'s announcement.
Volume licensing customers, normally large organizations and companies will be able to grab Windows 7 RTM starting Aug 7 if they have an existing Software Assurance plan or if they do not have they will have it on Sept 1.
LeBlanc also confirmed that Microsoft will sell a three-license \"family pack\" upgrade from earlier editions of the OS to Windows 7 Home Premium, but did not flesh out that notice with pricing or timing information. Reports have circulated for two weeks that Microsoft would reprise the multi-license upgrade pack it offered for Windows Vista; at least one reseller has posted the suggested list price as $149.99 on its Web site.
Microsoft will likely announce that Windows 7 has reached release to manufacturing (RTM) status on Wednesday. An analyst with directions on Microsoft Michael Cherry said that RTM almost seems like a non-event and also stressed that he had no special knowledge of when Microsoft would declare Windows 7 finished. But it\'s got to be any day now. The company earlier pledge that it would move the new operating system into its final pre-sale phase, sometime in the second half of July 2009. The importance of RTM has ebbed since Windows Vista.
Consumers and other customers will have their first shot at Windows 7 on its official launch day Oct. 22 2009.
Read More Toshiba To Release Blu-ray Players By This Year
Just last week, the Digital Entertainment Group released its mid-year report, and Blu-ray Disc was clearly doing well in spite of the weak economy: Both disc sales and hardware sales are up as compared with last year.
The timing of Toshiba\'s plans actually makes perfect sense. Blu-ray has entered its mass market phase. The format is at a point of growth. Blu-ray player manufacturing costs have fallen off dramatically as compared with a year ago. And the street prices for players are also lower-you can now easily find a player for under $200.
All of these factors were apparently too great for Toshiba to ignore. That said, whether the company jumped into the fray because of Blu-ray\'s worldwide popularity.
Earlier, Toshiba withdrew HD DVD from the market in February 2008 after a series of crippling blows gave rival Blu-ray a clear edge. At the time, Toshiba indicated that, in the absence of HD DVD, it would instead pursue a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies.
In light of all of this, the news that Toshiba will produce its own Blu-ray player is actually unsurprising. Still, it is appropriate to wonder aloud why Toshiba would swallow its pride and enter into the competitive Blu-ray Disc player market.
The Blu-ray Disc Association noted that Blu-ray had achieved over 50 percent market share in Japan-clearly that means Toshiba has been leaving potential revenue on the table for its competitors to grab.
Read More Nokia to launch an entirely new series of handsets C Series and the X Series
Last April, Nokia filed a trademark application for C series. Nokia is all set to launch an entirely new series of handsets. The C Series and the X Series.
Nokia is all set for the new C Series, By the way Sony Ericsson also has handsets that belong to the C Series like the C902 and C905. Nokia filing for one more trademark name and this time its the X Series.
As we know, Nokia\'s already had the N-Series (for entertainment) and the E-Series (business), but all are waiting for the answer what\'s this new series for?
Not sure. However, some guess may be: Yes, the E in E-Seriesstands for business, and the N in Nseries stands for entertainment. So, what will the C in C-Series stands for? Some guess around internet are: stands for access (for Internet phone) or accent (for fashion phone).
Read More Intex New Netbooks and its Features
Intex, the maker of mobile phones, computers, and computer peripherals, has launched its very first netbook, the thin and light N101-WC1100.
The N101-WC1100 netbook is available in two colors \'chic red\' and \'elegant black\'.
The N101-WC1100 netbook specification as follows:
Read More * 10-inch WSVGA LED backlight display. * Powered by Intel Atom N270 processor, * An Intel 82845G Graphics Controller, * 1GB DDR2 memory expandable up to 2GB, * 160GB SATA hard drive resides in it, * 1.3-mega pixel webcam, * WiFi 802.11 b/g (wireless), * Bluetooth and * 7-in-1 mini card reader.
The netbook also claims to offer up to 4 hours of battery backup.Microsoft and Yahoo Once Again Talks for Search and Ads Deal
As Microsoft enjoying relative success with the recent launch of its Bing Web site. The possible alliance itself is somewhat surprising. Top Microsoft executives are currently in Silicon Valley ironing out the short strokes, which apparently are related to deployment of technology. Neither side is commenting on the potential agreement, as they have been down this and similar roads together in the past.
Microsoft and Yahoo are in the final round of talks aimed at negotiating a deal that will include Microsoft paying several billion dollars up front to take over its search advertising business and guarantee certain payments back to Yahoo.
Although confident in Bing and the popularity it has been gaining since going live, Microsoft still is clearly far behind search titan Google (as is Yahoo). This proposed deal is not a complete Microsoft takeover as was initially being discussed earlier this year, but both companies can gain some ground in the battle by becoming allies.
Sources at both companies said that if everything works out, an announcement could be made within a week. It is probably a matter of time before they finally followed through negotiations to the end.
Read More Microsoft announces its Azure plan details and pricing
Microsoft first announced its Azure plans at last year\'s PDC and the product has been available as a free technology preview form since then. The cloud operating system isn\'t launching in final form until Microsoft\'s October Professional Developer Conference.
On a pure consumption basis, Microsoft said it will charge 12 cents per hour for computing, 15 cents per gigabyte for storage and 10 cents per 10,000 storage transactions. For network bandwidth, the software maker is charging between 10 cents and 15 cents per gigabyte. The discount plan, dubbed the development accelerator comes in two forms and offers a 15 percent to 30 percent discount off the consumption charges. It requires a six-month commitment, with overage charges billed at the regular rates. After six months, the pricing reverts to the standard Azure rates.
Microsoft also announced pricing for its SQL Azure database, charging $9.99 for the basic Web edition, including up to a 1GB relational database and $99.99 for the Business Edition, which includes up to a 10GB database.
The software maker said it would promise 99.95 percent reliability for its compute and connectivity and 99.9 percent for role instance and storage. Microsoft finds itself in a new type of business, where it competes with the likes of Amazon.com\'s Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.com\'s Force dot com.
The pricing announcement would be made at this week\'s Worldwide Partner Conference, which is taking place in New Orleans.
Read More Features of Sony Walkman E-Series video MP3 player and the B-Series music player
Features of Sony Walkman E-Series video MP3 player and the B-Series music player.
The second new launch is the E-Series Walkman, this time offering video playback alongside the audio, but still keeping a fairly small (and indeed slim at 9.3mm thick) profile. The E-Series player packs in a 2-inch QVGA LCD screen for a \'detail-packed\' view of videos, photos, album art and playlists, along with Clear Audio technology for more clarity and a more powerful bass, a 5-band equalizer.
It has Dynamic Normalizer to balance audio levels between tracks and easy file transfer via both USB dragging or iTunes. There\'s also an FM radio on-board, 30 hours of music playback from a single charge and if file formats are an issue, software to help with conversion. Price hasn\'t been confirmed as yet.
The B-Series Walkman first broke cover in Japan last month, a small and colourful thumb-like device (with matching headphones), which offers a healthy 18 hours of music playback per charge, USB drag and drop for loading up, top-notch audio quality and a Zappin\' function. You also get an FM radio and a radio recording function.
Read More Microsoft plans to release cloud-based component of Office 2010
Microsoft plans to release cloud-based component of Office 2010:
![\"microsoft-cloud-based-office-2010\"](\"http://techmaniaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/microsoft-cloud-based-office-2010.jpg\" "\\"microsoft-cloud-based-office-2010\\"")
Microsoft\'s unveiling of the free Office Web applications comes as Google and its free Web-based Google Docs offering continues to woo away once-paying Microsoft Office users. Industry analysts said Microsoft\'s free Office Web offering is a chance for the software giant to regain some of the users it lost to Google while also re-establishing its dominance in the productivity software space.
Microsoft\'s opportunity to one-up Google by offering a much better product. The full Office 2010 suite will hit the streets in the first half of next year. When Office Web goes live, it will offer stripped-down versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote in the cloud. Users will be able to access the applications directly through Microsoft\'s Windows Live portal, and they will launch directly within a browser.
Google\'s initiative is forcing Microsoft to change its business model. Google had Microsoft painted into a corner, and the only way it could respond to Google Apps and Google Docs was to offer a free application suite of its own.
And while Microsoft is taking aim at Google and reclaiming its turf, Microsoft offering free Web-based applications has some industry watchers wondering how Microsoft will make money with free software via Office Web. It\'s the age-old question of why buy the cow when the milk is free.
During the first three quarters of fiscal 2009, Microsoft\'s software division, which includes Office products, made $9.3 billion in profit from $14.3 billion in sales, with Office representing the majority of those sales.
Microsoft has said that the free version of Office 2010 via Office Web won\'t give users all of the same features and functions they would receive if they purchased the desktop-based software, which will run from about $70 to $350 depending on the version. Microsoft said Office 2010 will feature video editing in PowerPoint and image manipulation in Word, two features that the free version will not offer.
Read More Microsoft\'s unveiling of the free Office Web applications comes as Google and its free Web-based Google Docs offering continues to woo away once-paying Microsoft Office users. Industry analysts said Microsoft\'s free Office Web offering is a chance for the software giant to regain some of the users it lost to Google while also re-establishing its dominance in the productivity software space.
Microsoft\'s opportunity to one-up Google by offering a much better product. The full Office 2010 suite will hit the streets in the first half of next year. When Office Web goes live, it will offer stripped-down versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote in the cloud. Users will be able to access the applications directly through Microsoft\'s Windows Live portal, and they will launch directly within a browser.
Google\'s initiative is forcing Microsoft to change its business model. Google had Microsoft painted into a corner, and the only way it could respond to Google Apps and Google Docs was to offer a free application suite of its own.
And while Microsoft is taking aim at Google and reclaiming its turf, Microsoft offering free Web-based applications has some industry watchers wondering how Microsoft will make money with free software via Office Web. It\'s the age-old question of why buy the cow when the milk is free.
During the first three quarters of fiscal 2009, Microsoft\'s software division, which includes Office products, made $9.3 billion in profit from $14.3 billion in sales, with Office representing the majority of those sales.
Microsoft has said that the free version of Office 2010 via Office Web won\'t give users all of the same features and functions they would receive if they purchased the desktop-based software, which will run from about $70 to $350 depending on the version. Microsoft said Office 2010 will feature video editing in PowerPoint and image manipulation in Word, two features that the free version will not offer.
Google Chrome OS put into direct competition with Leading Software Gaints
![\"google-os-live\"](\"http://techmaniaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/google-os-live.jpg\" "\\"google-os-live\\"")
Schmidt now believes Google can withstand whatever counterpunches Microsoft might throw as the company sets out to make computers cheaper to buy and more enjoyable to use with an operating system tied to Google\'s 9-month-old browser, Chrome.
The operating system, due out in the second half of 2010, threatens to chip away at Microsoft\'s market share in the low end of the PC market the less expensive and less powerful laptops known as \"netbooks,\" which are becoming increasingly popular among consumers primarily interested in surfing the Web.
Most industry observers believe it will take years before the Chrome operating system develops into a serious challenger to Microsoft\'s Windows, which runs on more than 1 billion PCs, according to Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal. The Chrome operating system also could put Google into direct competition with Apple.
Schmidt doesn\'t see a conflict. He said he doesn\'t intend to rescue himself from Apple board discussions about computer operating systems like he does when the directors talk about Apple\'s iPhone. Schmidt leaves those talks because Google also makes a mobile operating system called Android.
Some computer makers already are considering using Android as an operating system in netbooks, but some may think Android is better suited for handheld devices. They also think elements of the Android and Chrome systems could eventually merge.
As long as the Internet market is still expanding, Schmidt said he doesn\'t view either as serious threats, because Google\'s internal studies show those who sign up for Twitter and Facebook tend to use the company\'s search engine even more. He also said Google has held discussions with Twitter on a lot of different issues, including getting better access to Twitter\'s posts so they will show up more quickly in Google\'s search results.
Although Google won\'t charge for the Chrome operating system, Schmidt said it could easily pay off by driving down the cost of computers so people can afford to buy more machines and surf the Web more often. Google wants people to spend more time online because it is the biggest seller of Internet ads which is the main source of its more than US$20 billion in annual revenue.
