Intel Reveals Details About Larrabee Graphics Processor

At the opening of Saarland University’s Visual Computing Institute, Intel revealed few details about its upcoming Larrabee graphics processor. Larrabee will use 32 x86 processor cores, each of these cores will have its own vector math unit allowing them to process very specialized tasks very efficiently. The design of the new Larrabee graphics processor will also have a pool of cache and memory interface on their edges for giving faster access to the system. Read More

Microsoft: Windows Mobile 6.5 Team Lacked Time to Polish The UI

Windows Mobile development team has admitted that they lacked time to completely polish the UI of upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5. The developer team sat for a roundtable conference at TechEd 2009 (video above) and talked about various parts of the smartphone OS like Widgets, applications development and lack of Silverlight support. Read More and Watch Video

Netbooks Saw 30 Percent Return Rate Last Year

Intel’s marketing chief Sean Maloney said at the Intel Investor meeting that some netbook resellers saw 30 percent return rate. He said the return rate was high because retail stores were selling netbooks as notebooks.
“In the first period – June, July, August of last year – there were some in the retail channels that were shipping (netbooks) as notebooks,” Sean Maloney said. Read More

Microsoft’s Zune Pass Financial Planner – Is it This Simple?

Microsoft has posted a new video called “Financial Planner: iTunes Costs A Lot, Zune Pass A Little”. Watching the video made me think, have I been spending too much by buying songs from iTunes? So I calculated the total cost of all the songs I own, and some of the songs in my library are from 1980’s when I was a small kid. The total number of songs that I have in my iTunes library is 2,348. If we calculate based on $1 price for each song the total will be $2,348 – the amount of money I spend in past 20 years on songs. Read More and Watch Video

Analyst: Android to Grow Faster Than iPhone, will it Matter?

Strategy Analytics has estimated that Android based devices will grow 900 percent in 2009. The growth will be much faster than the iPhone that will grow at 79 percent to about 23.8 million units this year. Strategy Analytics director Neil Mawstow said, “Android is now in a good position to become a top-tier player in smartphones over the next two to three years.” Read More

Amazon Offering 50% or More Discount on Various Headphones

Amazon is now offering 50 percent or more discount on various top brand earphones / headphones. Most headphones have more than 50 percent discount like JBuds J2 for $29.95. Read More

Intel’s New Xeon Processors Outperforms AMD Opteron lineup

Intel’s desktop and laptop processor lineup has been kicking AMD’s butt for past two to three years, but on the server-side AMD has been holding it own against the Xeon processors from Intel. However, Intel recently introduced their new Nehalem based Xeon processors claiming that the slowest new Xeon processor is faster than the fastest AMD Opteron processor. AMD on the other hand says that it still has better performance-per-dollar value. AMD also claimed that they have the world’s most power efficient server chips. So is AMD still a good option for servers? Read More

JD Power Ranks iPhone Top in Customer Satisfaction for 2009

Apple ranks highest in customer satisfaction, according to the JD Power 2009 Wireless Consumer Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study. The Study measures customer satisfaction with smartphones across several key factors including ease of operation (30%), operating system (22%), features (21%), physical design (18%), and battery function (9%). Read More

Review Roundup: Apple Mac mini with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M

Last month, Apple updated the mini desktop lineup. The update brought latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, DDR3 memory and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics. The lower end $599 Mac mini model now comes with 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB DDR3 RAM and 120GB hard drive, whereas the higher end model get 2GB RAM and 320GB hard drive for additional $200. According to Apple, the update makes the new Mac mini faster and greener. Below are the six best reviews for Mac mini:
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Mac OS X Snow Leopard to Include Screen Recording and YouTube Support

It is a known fact that Apple hasn’t announced or shown all the new features that will come in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. However, beta versions of Snow Leopard that Apple has released for developers to test have revealed few of those features. The new QuickTime X Player in Snow Leopard will receive many new features – including screen recording and YouTube support. Read More

iPhone App Store will Reach 2 Billion Mark in October

Last week, Apple announced that more than 1 billion applications have been downloaded from the App Store, the largest mobile applications store in the world. It took Apple just 9 months to reach the one billion mark selling on average 110 million applications each month or 3.7 million each day. Read More

Windows 7 Release Candidate Coming on May 5th with Windows XP Mode

Microsoft has announced that the Windows 7 Release Candidate is on track for April 30th for download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers. The company plans for a broader public release starting May 5th. Microsoft said, after beta release of Windows 7 in January, the company has been receiving and analyzing large number of feedbacks provided by beta testers. Based on those feedbacks Microsoft has made various bug fixes and improvement to overall user experience in Windows 7 Release Candidate. Read More

WWDC will Bring MacBook Updates and New Notebook with OLED Display

9to5mac has posted information provided by their source about upcoming minor MacBook updates that Apple will announce at WWDC. The update will bring minor speed bumps and possible built-in 3G-network support to the MacBook lineup. The source also said that we would see updated Pro Apps like Final Cut Pro, Aperture, Logic and Shake. Read More

Apple Reports $8.16 Billion in Revenue and $1.21 Billion in Profit

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 second quarter ended March 28, 2009. The Company posted revenue of $8.16 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.21 billion, or $1.33 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.51 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.05 billion, or $1.16 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Read More

Apple iTunes vs. Amazon MP3 Store - Where can you get your songs for less?

iTunes and Amazon MP3 are the two biggest online music retailers in the market today and both the stores introduced variable pricing structure for individual songs about two weeks ago. After introduction of variable pricing I noticed that same songs were priced differently on the services. For example, “Boom Boom Pow” by Black Eyed Peas is priced $1.29 on iTunes but it is just $0.99 on Amazon. Similarly, “You Found Me” by The Fray is priced $0.99 on iTunes but it is $1.29 on Amazon. which one of the two music retailers is costlier on average. Read More

Sharp Announces Mebius PC-NJ70A Netbook with Touchscreen Trackpad

Today morning, we said that rise of notebook market will come to a halt, if innovative products are not released. Well Sharp has announced their upcoming netbook Mebius PC-NJ70A that features a touchscreen in place of regular trackpad. The 4-inch touchscreen has 854 x 480 resolution, and can function both as a regular trackpad and as a secondary sub-display. Read More and Watch Video

More Voice Control Features Discovered in iPhone OS 3.0

Sources have revealed to Ars Technica evidence of various new voice control features that will be coming in iPhone 3.0. The codename for the new voice technology is “Jibbler” and the application is actually extension of SpringBoard (iPhone Finder) application, which can result in deeper voice control features throughout iPhone OS 3.0. Read More

LG Officially Announces Viewty Smart (LG-GC900) 8-Megapixel Camera Phone

LG today launched the new LG Viewty Smart that follows the heritage of the first LG Viewty camera phone. The Viewty Smart has higher megapixel (8-mega) camera sensor, sensitivity up to ISO 1600, LED flash and multi-face detection. The camera features new Intelligent Shot Mode that automatically select one of the seven pre-programmed scenarios based on subject, background and lighting condition to take perfect picture every time. Read More

Commercial Times: Foxconn to Manufacture Netbook for Apple

Chinese language newspaper Commercial Times is reporting that Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) is in running to land orders for a netbook from Apple. According to sources from the component supply chain, Apple’s netbook will become Foxconn’s major notebook shipment growth contributor in the second quarter. Read More

CPU Possibilities for Next Gen iPhone

DigiTimes has posted a list of chip and key component suppliers for next generation iPhone. The list (added below) contains almost all the components used in iPhone except the CPU. Though the list gives lot of information about the next gen iPhone, but the most important/interesting component – CPU is missing from the list. There has been lot of speculation about the CPU that Apple will use in next gen iPhone. Read More