News about computer hardware, network devices and the latest software

More secure and fast with solid state storage

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 23:26:00 -0700

Solid state storage is a nonvolatile, removable storage medium that employs integrated circuits (ICs) rather than magnetic or optical media. It is the equivalent of large-capacity, nonvolatile memory. Examples include flash memory Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices and various proprietary removable packages intended to replace external hard drives.

The main advantage of solid state storage is the fact that it contains no mechanical parts. Everything is done electronically. As a result, data transfer to and from solid-state storage media takes place at a much higher speed than is possible with electromechanical disk drives. The absence of moving parts may translate into longer operating life, provided the devices are reasonably cared for and are not exposed to electrostatic discharge.

Solid-state storage media lags behind electromechanical drives in terms of storage capacity. As of this writing, flash memory USB devices can store up to approximately 1 gigabyte (GB), whereas hard drives commonly hold 100 GB or more. The cost per megabyte is higher for solid-state storage devices than for electromechanical drives. However, the price gap appears to be narrowing, and the market for solid-state storage is growing. Many businesses and home users who have multiple computers favor solid-state storage devices for transferring data among their machines, because it is convenient, compact, and fast.

MacBook-Air more profitable than other Apple laptops, says analyst

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 02:37:00 -0700

"This is where Apple has always skewed their margins positively," Rassweiler said. "They offer an entry price point, but then go after the upgrade, where they bring in incrementally more memory, but at a higher margin on their end."

The iPad is a perfect example, he argued, noting that Apple makes a bigger profit on the high-end model that sports 64GB of flash memory storage space than the lowest-priced configuration that boasts just 16GB.

"That goes straight to Apple's bottom line," said Rassweiler, "because they make a ton of money on flash [memory]."

Michael Yang, the iSuppli analyst who tracks flash memory pricing, said that Apple's consumption -- in everything from the iPhone and iPad to, now, the MacBook Air -- puts it in a position others can't equal. "Not only can others not match Apple, they don't want to match Apple," said Yang.

Apple's appetite for flash lets it move the market price if it wants, and allows it to buy in bulk when prices are low, knowing that the RAM will be used in one device or another, something other hardware makers with smaller needs may be hesitant to do.

"Apple's a great reseller of flash," said Marshall, defending his BOM and margin estimates. "It's true that [an SSD] costs more per megabyte than a hard drive, but there's not a ton of it in the Airs, relative to other Apple notebooks."

The low-end MacBook, for example, features a 250GB platter-based hard drive, four times the capacity of the identically priced 11.6-in. 64GB MacBook Air.

And the move to SSD-only notebooks makes sense, added Rassweiler, because Apple's realized that people don't always need huge hard drives in their laptops. "Do you need a terabyte drive in your laptop? Probably not," he said. "In fact, you may not want a drive that large, because it puts all your eggs in one basket."

Instead, he suggested, Apple's MobileMe sync and storage service becomes the link between multiple machines, letting users share information among a number of devices, and store files in the cloud.

MacBook Air is more profitable than other MacBooks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 02:24:00 -0700

Apple's lowest-priced MacBook Air costs the company $718 to manufacture, giving the company a heftier margin for the line than for its other notebooks, an analyst said Friday.

The MacBook Air sports margins between 28% and 37%, said Brian Marshall of Gleacher & Co., who estimated the new notebooks' bill of materials (BOM). That's significantly above the approximately 20% margin for Apple's entire notebook line.

Marshall's estimates account for hardware and manufacturing costs, as well as royalties and licensing fees, but it excludes design and software development costs, advertising and marketing expenditures.

"The updated MacBook Air will be a phenomenal 'mobile content creating' device that won't be cannibalistic with the iPad," Marshall said.

Others agreed that Apple is in a position to do what its rivals cannot: Leverage its huge consumption of non-volatile flash memory to drive up profits.

"If they're not the world's largest consumer of [flash memory], they're one of its largest," said Andrew Rassweiler, the director of El Segundo, Calif.-based iSuppli's hardware teardown group. "At that point, you're almost a producer, so the more memory you put into a device, the more you make."
Marshall's numbers bear that out.

According to his preliminary BOM, the 64GB of flash memory used for the SSD (solid-state drive) inside the $999 11.6-in. MacBook Air costs Apple $80, putting that component in a tie with the Intel Core 2 Duo processor as the laptop's second-most expensive part. The priciest, at $180, is the 11.6-in. LED-backlit screen.
Marshall pegged the 64GB MacBook Air's margin at 28.1%.
But by doubling the storage space to 128GB, Apple boosts the profit margin of the same 11.6-in. MacBook Air to 34%. How? By charging consumers $200 more while incurring only $73.60 in additional costs.

The numbers are almost as impressive for Apple on the 13.3-in. Air. The 128GB model, which features an SSD that costs the company $154, pencils out with a margin of 33%. For $300 more, consumers get the same 13.3-in. notebook with 256GB of storage space. But the doubling of flash capacity costs Apple just $141, said Marshall, which pushes the profit margin to 37%.

This isn't a new strategy for Apple.

The lowest-priced MacBook Air features a 64GB SSD in place of a traditional hard drive. (Photo courtesy of iFixit)

Quoted from: http://www.merck.com

Review Intel® Core™ i7 Processor

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 11:18:00 -0700

Intel has released a new processor, the generation of "i". What's so great this new processor, intel processor review follows the highest type "i", Intel® Core™ i7 Processor.

Brilliantly fast

With faster, intelligent, multi-core technology that applies processing power where it's needed most, Intel® Core™ i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in PC performance. They are the best desktop processor family on the planet¹.

You'll multitask applications faster and unleash incredible digital media creation. And you'll experience maximum performance for everything you do, thanks to the combination of Intel® Turbo Boost technology² and Intel® Hyper-Threading technology (Intel® HT technology)³, which maximizes performance to match your workload.

Specifications

Processor Number

Cache

Clock Speed

Bus Speed

Number of Cores

Intel® Virtualization Technology◊

Intel® 64◊

Intel® Trusted Execution Technology◊

Execute Disable Bit◊

32 nm

i7-970

12 MB SmartCache

3.2 GHz

4.8 GT/s QPI

√

45 nm

i7-960

8 MB SmartCache

3.2 GHz

4.8 GT/s QPI

√

i7-950

8 MB SmartCache

3.06 GHz

4.8 GT/s QPI

√

i7-940

8 MB SmartCache

2.93 GHz

4.8 GT/s QPI

√

i7-930

8 MB SmartCache

2.8 GHz

4.8 GT/s QPI

√

i7-920

8 MB SmartCache

2.66 GHz

4.8 GT/s QPI

√

i7-880

8 MB SmartCache

3.06 GHz

2.5 GT/s DMI

√

i7-875K

8 MB SmartCache

2.93 GHz

2.5 GT/s DMI

√

i7-870S

8 MB SmartCache

2.66 GHz

2.5 GT/s DMI

√

i7-870

8 MB SmartCache

2.93 GHz

2.5 GT/s DMI

√

i7-860S

8 MB SmartCache

2.53 GHz

2.5 GT/s DMI

√

i7-860

8 MB SmartCache

2.8 GHz

2.5 GT/s DMI

√

Features and benefits
Go to the next level of multi-core performance.

Intel Core i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in quad-core performance and feature the latest innovations in processor technologies:

Intel® Turbo Boost technology maximizes speed for demanding applications, dynamically accelerating performance to match your workload—more performance when you need it the most².

Intel® Hyper-Threading technology enables highly threaded applications to get more work done in parallel. With 8 threads available to the operating system, multi-tasking becomes even easier³.

Intel® Smart Cache provides a higher-performance, more efficient cache subsystem. Optimized for industry leading multi-threaded games.

Intel® QuickPath Interconnect is designed for increased bandwidth and low latency. It can achieve data transfer speeds as high as 25.6 GB/sec with the Extreme Edition processor.

Integrated memory controller enables three channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, resulting in up to 25.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth. This memory controller's lower latency and higher memory bandwidth delivers amazing performance for data-intensive applications.

Intel® HD Boost significantly improves a broad range of multimedia and compute-intensive applications. The 128-bit SSE instructions are issued at a throughput rate of one per clock cycle, allowing a new level of processing efficiency with SSE4 optimized applications.

Microsoft lounching Windows phone 7

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 10:56:00 -0700

Exciting news for the maniacs product from Microsoft, recently the company released a new mobile phone. The new device named Windows phone 7, at a glance looks like a the other PDA but of course it's different, and offers many advantages. What's so special, here are reviews from gsmarena.com site.

A modern smartphone OS needs to be balanced - drawing on excellent cloud services and standing on the cutting edge of software. The Windows Phone 7 OS is nothing like Windows Mobile. It's got a trendy, almost magazine-like new look, and it is incredibly simple to use despite its different approach to just about everything.
Windows Phone 7 has a brand new interface

Microsoft received a loud collective boo when it revealed that Windows Phone 7 will not support multitasking. But the company is trying to break the mold here. Instead of making a playground for apps, it made WP7 the “killer app”. Anything extra that you install just integrates in and extends the relevant features.

They must’ve sat down to think. A complete makeover or start from scratch. In an odd way, it looks like they never actually made up their mind. That doesn’t matter though. The important thing is Windows Phone 7 is breaking loose from its “Windows Mobile” heritage and changes everything about itself – from the homescreen to the very nature of apps.

Key features:

Premium mobile OS (high minimum hardware requirements)

Clean, uncluttered interface with distinctive design language

Easy and thumbable user interface

Smooth operation with cool animations and transition effects

A fresh start with no legacy support needed

Backed up and developed by one of the largest software companies in the world

Excellent MS Office mobile implementation

Top-notch social integration

Excellent cloud services integration (SkyDrive, Windows Live, Xbox Live)

Wireless syncing of multimedia content

Internal memory expandable via microSD card slot (where available)

Main disadvantages:

No system-wide file manager

No videocalling

Limited third-party apps availability

No Bluetooth file transfers

No USB mass storage mode

No multitasking

No copy/paste

Too dependent on Zune software for computer file management and syncing

No music player equalisers

No Flash or Silverlight support in the web browser

No sign of free Bing maps Navigation so far

No DivX/XviD video support

No internet tethering support

New ringtones available only through the Marketplace

Swapping memory card requires hard reset; cards not readable by computer

Full information click here.

IBM lounch Power™ System

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 10:44:00 -0700

Quotes from the web nasi.com, IBM has launched IBM's hardware with the code of IBM power™ system, this powerful machine should be a consideration for those of you who need a powerful engine for business needs.

IBM 6th-generation of 64-bit processors is the ideal platform for launching any type of optimization project. Able to run any combination of Linux®, AIX® UNIX, and IBM i (formerly i5/OS) workloads on a single system concurrently, the new IBM Power-based system server are the converge the features and functionality of the highly popular IBM System i and System p platforms.

POWER6 processors

IBM’s ultra high-frequency, dual-core POWER6 processors integrate performance, availability, and efficiency features into the microprocessor. POWER6 processors include integrated hardware accelerators; one for floating-point applications, and another vectorized math and modeling needs. Self-healing functionalities such as instruction retry on alternate processor helps with error recovery and availability, and the ability to concurrently update firmware and operating systems without downtime helps to further minimize disruption.

Virtualization with PowerVM

IBM’s Hypervisor™ technology and PowerVM software bring virtualization capabilities to mission-critical applications. In addition to fueling cost-savings efforts like server consolidation, a virtualized infrastructure enables business flexibility and resiliency, allowing software patches to be staged, and virtual operating environments to be provisioned for testing and development.

Conserve energy costs
The POWER6 architecture was designed from the ground up with operating efficiency in mind. The enhanced consolidation capabilities of these servers enable what was formerly running on multiple physical systems, to run on one larger system, reducing redundant components and maintenance contracts. In addition, the new EnergyScale™ technology helps to reduce power & cooling costs with integrated powering-down of particular components, without affecting availability. In addition, IT can gain further insight into power and cooling trends, enabling them to further control costs, manage peak usage, increase availability, and plan for required physical facilities.

Dell Announces Mini 3 Smartphone

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:41:00 -0800

In an announcement that surprised no one, Dell Computers took the wrapping off its Android-based Dell Mini 3 smartphone on Friday.

Dell did not provide a launch date, but the company did say the phone would be available only in Brazil and China to start. That doesn't mean the Mini 3 will never reach American carriers, but don't count on it any time soon.
A Mini 3 History

Earlier this year rumors were circulating that Dell's smartphone project had been canceled due to lame specs and lack of interest from carriers. The day after that rumor came out, CEO Michael Dell reignited handset rumors after he said "it wouldn't be unreasonable" to expect the computer maker to release a smartphone in the future.

Those comments were followed by rumors that Dell was producing a smartphone for the Chinese market. Then in August, a prototype reportedly surfaced at a promotional event in China.
Who Gets the New Phone at Launch?

The Mini 3 will be available in Brazil from the national carrier Claro and from China Mobile in the world's most populous country. The two carriers serve more than 542 million customers combined.
Will the Phone Come to the U.S.?

It's not clear whether the Mini 3 will ever show up in the U.S., and that may not be such a bad thing considering the phone's rumored specs (see below). But Dell was quick to point out in its announcement that the company already sells 3G netbooks through AT&T and Verizon, as well as many other carriers around the world.

Dell hinted that these relationships with carriers could mean "more opportunities to meet the needs of a connected lifestyle" in the future. In October, there were reports that Dell may offer a smartphone through AT&T as early as next year.
What are the Phone's Specs?

Dell did not release any specs for the Mini 3, saying information would only be available on a partner-by-partner basis when the device is available in stores. This suggests Dell will be tailoring the Mini 3's feature set for the particular tastes and needs of each country where the device is sold. This is also supported by the fact that in China, the Dell is baking China Mobile's Ophone platform -- a modified version of Android -- into the Mini 3.

When a prototype of the device surfaced earlier this year, the Mini 3 (then known as the Mini3i) was believed to have a 3.5-inch touchscreen with 360-by-640 resolution, mini USB port, SD card slot (no word on maximum storage size), and a 3.2-megapixel camera. The Mini3i was also thought to be a 2G device with no Wi-Fi connectivity. However, considering China Mobile's recent desire to improve its 3G offerings, it's safe to assume Dell's Mini 3 has been bumped up to 3G capability.

With or without 3G, the Mini3i's rumored specs were so lame they only reinforced earlier reports that Dell's smartphone was a real stinker. If the Mini 3 is to have any impact in the U.S., the company would have to step up its game for a market that is becoming increasingly crowded with BlackBerrys, Droids and iPhones.