by Marcus Yam July 30, 2008

Among the hardcore gaming crowd, John Carmack’s work with id Software is legendary for producing 3D gaming works such as Doom and Quake. Although Carmack is clearly comfortable pushing the limits of PC hardware, his latest interest appears to be in mobile games – and his sights are now set on the Apple iPhone . “We wanted to do something for the iPhone , but we just didn’t have the scheduling or the resources available,” Carmack said to Forbes. “I really regret not having something at launch.” The launch that Carmack referred to was the launch of the App Store on iTunes, which coincided with the release of the iPhone 3G. The App Store allows iPhone and IPod Touch users to download and install applications and games for use on their mobile device. While Carmack won’t have the usual dual-core CPU and blazing AMD or NVIDIA GPUs on tap, he seems more than confident that the iPhone is capable of delivering the graphical goods. “The iPhone, as a device, is in the same generation power-wise as the PS2 or Xbox,” he said. “The graphics are a little lower but the RAM is a lot higher. … You could easily spend $10 million on an iPhone game, but the market just can’t support that yet.”

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by Purwa Naveen Raman Wed Jul 30, 2008

In recent months, personal computer maker Dell Inc., has been testing a digital music player that could go on sale as early as September, the Wall Street Journal newspaper said, citing several Dell officials. Dell’s new foray would put it into an Apple-led market that has defied assaults. Companies like Microsoft Corp and Sony Corp have tried — and failed — to make a dent in the market dominated by Apple’s iPod players and iTunes store, the Journal said. The music player which Dell has been testing features a small navigation screen and basic button controls to scroll through music play lists, the Journal reported. It would connect to online music services via a Wi-Fi Internet connection, and Dell would likely price the model at less than $100, the Journal said. Dell’s first foray into the music market in 2003 was a huge disappointment. It withdrew from the music-player market after its DJ Ditty player failed to make major inroads.

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By Wolfgang Gruener Wednesday, July 30, 2008

AppleInsider recently ran a story that got us scratching our heads. Apparently, Apple’s upcoming notebooks will not transition to Intel’s Centrino 2 (Montevina) chipset. It could be business as usual or it could be another sign of Apple’s growing purchasing power that enables the company to milk Intel. Sources however suggest that Apple could be returning to custom chipset design to differentiate its products from the competition. Apple Insider cites people “familiar with these plans” that claim a “trio of redesigned” notebooks will not adopt Montevina and the new “new wave of Macs may have little or nothing to do with Intel at all.” This statement is somewhat surprising, as most Mac announcements over the past two years were all about Intel. Apple transitioned its higher-end notebooks and iMacs quickly to a new Intel platform (Santa Rosa) and we know of at least two “special SKU” processors that were made available to Apple only. So is it business as usual and these new notebooks are just lower-end models (read: not Macbook Pro) that won’t get the privilege of running Centrino 2? Perhaps. Your guess is as good as ours.

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By Monica Chen, Joseph Tsai, Friday 25 July 2008

With falling demand for entry-level discrete graphics cards, and even mid-range cards in some cases, due to improvements in motherboard IGP performance, several graphics card makers have taken steps to enter the motherboard market. The makers who have started to launch motherboard products include PowerColor (Tul), XFX, Sapphire, BFG, Gainward, Inno3D, Galaxy and Zotac. Most of the graphics card makers have outsourced their motherboard manufacturing to OEMs in a bid to lower costs. China-based motherboard OEM J&W Technology has gained the most orders, along with Palit and Jetway, according to industry sources.

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By Jacqueline Emigh, July 28, 2008

“Make no mistake about it. This isn’t cable,” said Virginia Ruesterholz, president of Verizon Telecom, in announcing today the immediate start of FiOS services with 100 high-definition channels in parts of New York City, plus the availability of 150 HD channels by the end of this year in sections of New York City and some other areas of the US. Because nearly 60 percent of New York City residences and businesses are located in multiple dwelling units (MDUs), Verizon is putting an early focus on apartment buildings. More than 100 MDUs will go live with 100 HD-channel TV today, according to Maura Breen, Verizon’s general manager for New York. “We’re in discussions with hundreds of other MDUs,” said Breen, during a news conference that was preceded by a publicity march for FiOS TV through Grand Central Station by Verizon workers. Verizon will also offer 100 HDTV channels throughout 108 neighbborhoods of New York City, as well as among existing FiOS TV customers in some suburbs surrounding the city, including areas north of the city, on Long Island, and in northern New Jersey.

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By Tim Conneally, July 28, 2008

Dell has issued a BIOS update to prevent its notebooks equipped with faulty Nvidia graphics cards from overheating. Notebooks equipped with certain Nvidia GPUs were reportedly failing at abnormally high rates by the graphics company itself in an SEC regulatory filing. At the time, however, the company did not list which configurations were failing, saying only that it was one sold in significant quantities. Reports soon arose claiming that most GeForce 8-series graphics cards (below 8800) were the products in question in Nvidia’s filing. The company did not issue a confirmatory statement, but said it expected to lose between $150-200 million fixing the problem. Dell has issued a system update to ten of its notebooks, including many of the popular Vostro line, which addresses the problems found in Nvidia’s GPUs. Confirming speculation that sub-8800 8-series GPUs are the unnamed faulty family, many of those notebooks listed in Dell’s BIOS update contain 8400M and 8600M GS graphics cards.

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The SimpleTech drive can transfer data 25% faster than similar products and includes a companion online backup service and virus protection.
By Antone Gonsalves July 28, 2008

Fabrik on Monday launched an eco-friendly external hard drive that the company claims can transfer data at speeds 25% faster than products with standard USB 2.0 ports. The SimpleTech drive communicates through the company’s faster “Turbo USB 2.0″ port. Standard USB 2.0 hardware transfers data at 480 Mbps. The drive offers 500 GB of storage for personal computers running Apple’s Mac OS X or Microsoft’s Windows. The product comes with Fabrik’s automated backup software, which, besides storing data in the drive, can also connect to the company’s online backup service. In trying to make its product more “green” than those of competitors, such as Western Digital Fabrik has built the enclosure of its SimpleTech drives in bamboo and recyclable aluminum. In addition, the drives ship in recyclable packaging and include an Energy Star power adapter. Energy Star is an international standard for energy-efficient consumer products.

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