The Cell processor first debuted in the Sony PS3 and now is starting to see uses outside of the PS3 gaming console.
Toshiba announced a pair of laptops that will use processors derived from the Cell processor used in the PS3. The Toshiba Qosmio G50 and F40 notebooks will use four of the Synergistic Processing Elements (SPE) from the Cell Broadband Processor. By comparison, the Cell processor in the PS3 has eight of the SPE cores (seven functional) and uses a Power PC main processor.

The modified Cell processor SPE cores will handle the heavy calculations required to handle processor-intensive duties like processing HD video. The main processor in the pair of notebooks will be an Intel Core 2 Duo.

PC World says that by integrating the modified Cell processor into the notebooks Toshiba will be able to offer features not seen on competing notebooks. The new features will include the ability to upscale standard definition video to HD, real-time transcoding of digital video to MPEG4 and the ability to burn video to DVD in half the time needed by current machines.

One particularly interesting feature the Cell processor allows is called face navigation. The notebooks will be able to recognize faces in a video and display them as thumbnails allowing users to find chapters and scenes using faces.

PC World reports that the Cell processor will also allow the onboard webcam to be used to control video playback with hand gestures. The Qosmio G50 will have an 18.4-inch screen, GeForce 9600M graphics, 500GB HDD, dual digital TV tuners and more with a retail price of $2,700. The F50 will use a 15-inch screen and have a 250GB HDD with a retail price of around $2,300. The notebooks will be sold in Japan, but details on the launch are unavailable.

IBM’s record breaking Roadrunner supercomputer also takes advantage of a modified Cell processor to speed its performance.

[Source]

SSDs still have a way to go before they are on par with traditional hard drives as far as price and storage capacity goes. Ridata, however, today announced three new SSDs that are at least helping to push the price barrier down to more affordable levels.

The new Ridata SSDs use multi-level cell (MLC) technology that allows the storage of two data bits per cell making for fast read and write speeds with low power consumption. Low power consumption is the key to longer battery life in a notebook and utility savings in the enterprise environment.

The line of SSDs is called the Ridata Ultra-S Plus series and will be available in 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB capacities. The drives have a mean time between failure of 4,000,000 hours and data integrity is enhanced with static wear leveling and Reed-Solomon ECC. Ridata says that SMART features work to provide a write endurance cycle of up to 1,000,000 times depending on the drive capacity.

According to Ridata, the drives have a read speed of 128MB/sec and a write speed of 80MB/sec.

The Ridata SSDs connect to notebooks and PCs via a traditional SATA connection. The line of drives will be available in late July and according to Engadget; the 32GB SSD will sell for $169.90, the 64GB for $294.90, and the 128GB will sell for $537.90.

The pricing for the 32GB is right in line with OCZ's new Core Series SSDs, however, the 64GB and 128GB models are a bit more expensive. Samsung announced a line of SSDs that also use MLC technology in July.

[Source]

Microsoft has been making the rounds lately with news of its Xbox 360 price cut. The Redmond, Washington-based company dropped the price of its 20GB Xbox 360 from $349.99 to $299.99. In addition, the company announced that a new 60GB Xbox 360 would occupy the $349.99 price once stock of the 20GB models is depleted.

Not to be left out, Sony today announced some product shuffling of its own. The “non-special edition” 80GB PS3 is returning to the lineup in September – but this time, the console will be priced at $399.99. The 80GB “Core Pack” as it will be called will mirror the existing 40GB model in everything but maximum storage capacity.

The $399.99 price doesn't leave much room for the existing 40GB which occupies the same price point. Sony could make a move similar to Microsoft and reduce the price of the console to $299.99 until the stock is depleted, and then drop the SKU altogether. On the other hand, the company could set the price permanently at $299.99 and leave the SKU in the product mix.

No matter what option Sony ends up choosing, better-equipped and cheaper consoles are a win-win for consumers.

[Source]

The future of mice arrives this year

It’s not every day that you see a mouse design that really makes you do a double-take. Truth be told, many mice do little to excite. While some performance-oriented gaming companies have debuted special mice with adjustable weighting, high accuracy scanning, and extra buttons; most mice look remarkably similar.

Among these modest mice department, as well as in gaming, Microsoft has long done quite well, with a solid line of utilitarian offerings. Now Microsoft is looking to go in a different, more radical direction, and is sending shock-waves through the peripherals market following its announcement of a wild new design.


A picture of the arc mouse in action -- the new mouse will be about standard size, with a hollowed out underbody, which will allow it to fold for storage. It will retail for $59.95. (Source: Microsoft)

Microsoft will release an unusual design appropriately titled the arc mouse. This wireless mouse features a curved form that is hollowed on its underside, allowing it to bend closed for ultra-compact storage. The new design will debut in time for the 2008 holiday season.

While the new mouse will likely operate in a pretty standard fashion, it's the look that really stands out. The design almost leaves one to wonder whether the mouse will tip or have balancing issues during use. However, if Microsoft can perfect its design, it may have the iPod of the mouse world ready for sale just in time for the holiday season.

[Source]

The launch was truly an intriguing global phenomenon.

The lines were shorter than the original iPhone release at Apple's 5th Avenue store in New York, according to initial reports, but the crowd exuded a much stronger sense of desperation. Apple employees were on hand to start wild rounds of cheering, whipping the crowd of Apple lovers into a frenzy.

In New Zealand, first to get the iPhone due to time zone mechanics, huge crowds formed. The typically sedate Kiwis went wild, some of them camping out, forming crowds as the moment approached. Japan was among the next to get the phone, with even larger crowds of up to 1,000 forming. Reporters spotted many of the ever-studious Japanese youth reviewing textbooks while they waited.

Across Europe, in Sweden, the Netherlands and elsewhere, similar excitement was seen. In Europe iPhones were delivered by armored car and handed off to the store manager.

The exception seemed to be Canada. In the normally busy city of Calgary, the Canadians seemed somewhat apathetic towards the launch, perhaps due to recent dissatisfaction with Rogers, Canada's leading service provider who picked up the cell phone. Or perhaps it was the hailing storm that pelted the city overnight. Nonetheless, citizens reported small crowds camping out over the course of the night. Quebec was similarly quiet.

One curious phenomena that arose was the iPhone EDGE model fire sale. Patrons of the iPhone were offering their obsolete models for as little as $50 to would be buyers. While some might be wary, it seems that it might be a fair deal for some, living outside AT&T's more limited 3G coverage, but within the EDGE network coverage.

Finally getting their sweaty palms on the new iPhone, Apple fans were perhaps a bit surprised to discover it looked amazing like... their old iPhone. Perhaps among the cuts that dropped the price from $399 to $199 was the removal of the chic aluminum casing. In its place is a shiny black (or white, optional on the 16GB model) plastic, a magnet for fingerprints. The move to plastic may also have been made to deal with Apple's ever growing list of radio frequencies supported -- GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS.

In the end, the phone still looks pretty much like an iPhone, and people report the plastic to feel solid, and not at all flimsy. The phone is now curved, fatter at the center and thinner at the edge, a popular design trick to give the illusion of thinness. Unfortunately, this means that when tapping out an email on a table, the phone rocks back and forth.

In a move that angered some, Apple replaced the old dock, which is no longer compatible with the iPhone. After Apple "sells" customers on the iPhone, they are in its clutches and it slams them with a $30 fee for their new phone. Another minor gripe is that the phone does not automatically detect GSM or 3G networks, the user must configure it themselves.

The new phone sports noticeably better quality on 3G and GSM, according to early adopters. Battery life weighs in close to expectations from Apple with 10 / 5 hours talk on GSM / 3G (respectively), 5 hours 3G data, 6 hours WiFi, 24 hours music and 7 hours video. The camera is reported to be slightly sharper, but unimpressive, overall.

Music fans will be happy -- the iPhone now has a flush 3.5mm jack. This will allow normal headphones to be used. The speaker, which many complained was too quiet, has also been pumped up.

IPhone tests have showed it to be a speedy performer, with data rates of 300 - 500Kbps in the U.S. and 700-800Kbps on faster foreign networks. The GPS is also very fast, supplementing satellite acquisition with cell phone tower triangulation. Also the GPS uses Skyhook's proprietary WiFi-based location system, the only known phone on the market to do so. Microsoft Exchange, now supported, works well for email, but can only support personal/corporate coexisting accounts, not personal/enterprise. PowerPoint presentations now can open automatically on the phone as well.

In other iPhone related news, the 2.0 Firmware for the iPhone/iPod Touch which enables the new Apps feature and such goodies as Nike+Apple was leaked for free. It has now been officially released for $9.99, but it is still floating around for free. There have been some reports of problems with the free version. Expect a rapid crackdown from Apple as well.

All in all it was a busy day for Apple worldwide. No real surprises, no riots, but still the iPhone launch was an impressive display by Apple of its market might.

[Source]

Belkin announced the FlyWire HD device that does two things for the home theater user. First it allows for three HDMI sources to connect to the TV via one HDMI port on the TV, projector, or other display device. The other thing the FlyWire does is allow for custom-looking installs without having wires run from the TV to the components.
Belkin says that its FlyWire device operates in the open 5GHz band and manages its own wireless connection. It is capable of adjusting both the frequency and power to avoid interference on the available bandwidth and to overcome interference and impedance that might affect image quality.


Belkin says that thanks to this management technology that users can stream video games wirelessly to a TV without any lag being introduced due to wireless streaming. The FlyWire will be introduced in two models: the FlyWire and the FlyWire R1. The normal FlyWire will be available in October and the FlyWire R1 will be available in Q1 2009.

The FlyWire will retail for $999.99 and offers range suitable for operating in the entire home through walls and windows. The device has an IR backchannel to allow the control of AV devices hidden inside closets or other areas. An included remote allows for control of inputs and components. Those preferring their own remotes can use the IR receiver and IR blaster.

The FlyWire R1 is an in-room solution that includes a remote for switching inputs and automatic frequency hopping. Both versions of the FlyWire require the use of a FlyWire receiver that connects to the TV. The devices can support resolutions on 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 576p, 576i, 480p, and 480i. In addition to the three HDMI inputs and one HDMI output, the devices also have two component and one composite or S-Video input.

The FlyWire is significantly more expensive than systems like the Philips Wireless HDMI, but the FlyWire offers a wealth of features not seen on the Philips system.

[Source]

It's only been approximately a year and a half since the first 1TB disc drive* got to make the marketplace. Hitachi was the first to bring out its 1TB HDD in January of 2007.
Just this week Hitachi brought out its second generation 1TB HDD with a 43% power savings equated to the first generation. The Hitachi drive applies 3 discs to bring the 1TB capacity and economize energy. Nowadays, Seagate declared the world’s first 1.5TB desktop disc drive known as the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB.

As you are able to gather by the name, the drive spins around at 7,200 RPM and applies four discs to gain the massive 1.5TB capacity. Seagate says that this is the biggest growth in store capacity in the latest 50-years and the 500GB growth in capacity is thanks to improved perpendicular magnetic recording technology.

Along with the 1.5TB 3.5-inch desktop HDD, Seagate as well declared new 500GB 2.5-inch HDDs for use in notebook computer*. The 500GB notebook computer drives will ship in 5,400 and 7,200 rpm varieties. The drives are called the Momentus 5400.6 and Momentus 7200.4 HDDs. The 5,400 RPM drive applies an 8MB memory cache and the 7,200 drive has a 16MB memory cache.

Seagate executive VP and general manager of PC Business Michael Wingert told in a statement, “Organizations and consumers of all kinds worldwide continue to make, share and consume digital content at stages never before seen, giving rise to new markets, new application program* and requirement for desktop and notebook computers with unprecedented storage capacity, performance and reliability. Seagate is committed to powering the next generation of computing nowadays with the planet’s quickest, highest-capacity and most reliable storage solutions.”

Seagate declared in 2006 that it expected capacity of HDDs to hit 2.5TB by 2009. The Seagate 1TB HDD was declared a bit over a year ago in June 2007.

[Source]

Samsung announced that its latest SSDs are now in volume production. The new SSDs will be available in 128GB and 64GB capacities. The capacity isn’t what sets these drives apart, rather it’s the multi-level cell (MLC) technology used in the Samsung SSDs.

According to Samsung the new MLC SSDs are capable of providing read speeds of 90MB/s and write speeds of 70MB/s -- performance on par with SSDs using single-level cell technology. The difference is that SSDs built on the MLC technology offer about a 20 times improvement in the typical 4-5 year lifespan of a PC hard drive. Power consumption is another big feature of the MLC SSDs with requirements for 0.2 watts in standby and 0.5 watts in active mode.

Jim Elliott, VP memory marketing for Samsung Semiconductor said in a statement, “With the 64 GB and 128 GB MLC SSDs, we are satisfying the density requirements of most business users and many PC enthusiasts, who will appreciate not only the performance gains and added reliability, but also the more attractive pricing.”

Samsung says that the MLC SSDs will use a 3 Gbps interface and that the 128GB uses 64 MLC NAND flash memory chips of 16 gigabits each and is enclosed in a brushed metallic casing measuring 100mm x 69.8mm and 9.5mm thick. Samsung declined to comment on the pricing of the SSDs.

Samsung first announced the 128GB MLC SSD in January and it is just now entering mass production.

[Source]

When ASUS first launched its Eee PC the term netbook was coined to describe the small, low-cost systems with roughly enough power to only surf the net. As time has gone by, ASUS and other manufacturers have introduced new models with more features and the price for a netbook has slowly began to creep up into real notebook territory.
Laptop Magazine sat down with ECS vice president of sales Henry Kwan to get some information on what the ECS G10IL netbook will bring to market to set itself apart from the netbook masses. Kwan says that the G10IL will feature EDGE, HSUPA, and HSPDA mobile broadband support, but will not feature support for WiMAX.

The ECS netbook entry will be produced in 8.9-inch and 10-inch size systems, but the version most likely to hit the U.S. will be the larger 10-inch version. The ECS G10IL will hit stores in the U.S. in September with prices for basic systems lacking mobile broadband capability starting at $399.

The G10IL will be available in versions running Linups Lite 9.4 Linux on an 8GB SSD -- likely to be the $399 version -- and systems will also be sold with an 80GB HDD running Windows XP. ECS says that the G10IL is the first netbook designed specifically for the business user, not the education customer.

DailyTech first reported on the specs of the ECS G10IL in March of 2008 when specifics were scant and pricing was rough. Later in March DailyTech confirmed the ECS netbook would use Intel’s Atom CPU.

[Source]

Desktop sales have slowed due to the rise of notebooks across most manufacturers over the last few years. Despite that fact, a market remains for desktop computers -- especially those that are small and low-cost.
Acer, the third largest PC maker in the world, added a new X1200 model to its Aspire line today that is both small and cheap. The systems are very small with the case measuring 10.6-inches high x 4-inches wide x 14.4-inches long. This helps maximize desktop space and can allow the systems to fit into cramped entertainment systems for those looking to surf the web on their big screen.

Despite being a small system room for expansion is available inside the chassis with two PCI Express slots. One of the slots is an x1 design and one is an x16 slot. The X1200 has five available USB 2.0 ports, a 14-in-1 memory card reader, IEE 1394 port, and audio jacks all on the front of the PC for easy access.

Several different X1200 configurations are being offered with prices starting at $450. The X1200 which retails for $449.99 has a AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core 4850e CPU, NVIDIA 8200 on-board graphics, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, a 320 GB HDD, and runs on Windows Vista Premium 64.

Stepping up to $459.99 gets an Athlon X2 5000+ CPU in addition to the aforementioned specifications. For $699.99 a version using the 4850e and a 500GB HDD and shipping with a 22-inch LCD is available.

[Source]

Dell just busted out a new member in its storied line of LCDs, the UltraSharp 2709W. The 27-inch LCD is Dell's followup to the 2707WFP, and features the same 1920 x 1200 resolution, 9-in-2 media card reader and 6ms response time, but bumps the contrast ratio to 3000:1 and goes for some new all-black stylings. Brightness is a mean 450 nits, but the real fun comes with ports: Dell squeezed just about everything known to man in here, including HDMI, DVI-D, VGA, component, composite, and DisplayPort. There's also a nice collection of USB ports, plus HDCP for good measure. With a three year warranty the display sells for $999, quite the steal compared to the 2707WFP's intro price of $1,400 last year.

Second place on the list goes to a system with a max speed of 478.2 teraflops

IBM’s latest supercomputer – Roadrunner -- sits atop the Top500 supercomputers list that will be released at the International Supercomputing Conference in Dresden, Germany this week.
Its rise to the top of the list comes after it was able to break the petaflop barrier last week. News.com reports that Roadrunner was able to reach 1.026 petaflops, a bit over one quadrillion calculations per second.

The Roadrunner supercomputer dethroned IBM’s own BlueGene/L -- last year’s most powerful supercomputer -- pushing BlueGene/L to the number two spot on the list. BlueGene/L was able to reach 208.6 teraflops last year. This year it more than doubled its performance to 478.2 teraflops, but was still unable to match Roadrunner.

Roadrunner is based on the IBM QA22 blades that use an advanced version of the Cell processor found in the Sony PS3. The processing cores used in the Roadrunner are from AMD and make the machine the world’s first hybrid supercomputer.

Roadrunner is comprised of 278 refrigerator-size server racks and has 6,562 dual-core Opterons. IBM is the manufacturer of 210 of the 500 supercomputers on the Top500 list. Other well known makers with systems making the Top500 list include HP with 183 systems on the list and its top performer taking the number 8 spot on the list.

Sun has its Ranger system on the list at number 4, the Jaguar from Cray is number 5, Encanto from SGI is number 7, and Altix from SGI is number 10. Intel is the dominant processor in the supercomputer market powering 75% of all systems that made the Top500 list and 90% of ranked quad-core processor machines.

[Source]

The GPUs in the series include the GTX 280 and GTX 260

NVIDIA launched a new family of GPUs today called the GTX 200 series. Within the series there are currently two GPUs -- the GTX 280 and the GTX 260. The NVIDIA GTX 280 is now the flagship GPU from NVIDIA and sits in the line above the 9800 GX2.
NVIDIA is stressing with the new GTX 200 family that the GPUs go beyond gaming and are one of the most powerful processors in a PC and can be used for rendering video and other functions. NVIDIA says that its goals with the architecture of the GTX 200 series were to design a processor twice as powerful as the GeForce 8800 GTX, rebalance the architecture for future games with more complex shaders and more memory, improve efficiency per watt and per square millimeter, provide enhanced CUDA performance, and add a significant reduction in idle power requirements.

NVIDIA says that the GTX 200 line provides nearly a teraflop of computational power. The GTX 200 family also offers support for PhysX powered physics processing right on the GPU. Both the new GTX 280 and GTX 260 support SLI and 3-way SLI. The previous NVIDIA 9800 GX2 could not support 3-way SLI.



Key features in the new GTX 200 GPUs include support for three times the number of threads per flight at any given time. A new scheduler design allows for 20% more texturing efficiency. The memory interface for the GPUs is 512-bit (GTX 280) and full-speed, raster-operation (ROP) frame blending is supported. The GTX 200 series also features twice the number of registers for longer and more complex shaders and IEEE754R double precision floating-point. The GTXC 200 line also supports 10-bit color scan out via the DisplayPort only.

One of the main goals with the GTX 200 line was improved power management. Both the GTX 200 series GPUs have idle power requirements of about 25W; during Blu-ray playback power requirements are around 35W; full 3D performance requirements vary with the most power needed being 236W (GTX 280). The GTX 200 line is compatible with HybridPower, which makes the power needs of the GPU effectively 0W.

The GTX 280 is built on a 65nm process and has 1.4 billion transistors. The stock video cards have a graphics clock of 602 MHz, processor clock of 1,296 MHz, and a memory clock of 2,214 MHz. The GTX 280 has 1GB of GDDR3 and 240 processing cores and 32 ROPs.

The GTX 260 is also built on the 65 nm process and has 1.4 billion transistors. The graphics clock for the GTX 260 is 576 MHz, the processor clock is 1,242 MHz, and the memory clock is 1,998 MHz. The memory interface on the GTX 260 is 448-bit and it has 896MB of GDDR3 memory. The GTX 260 has 192 processing cores and 28 ROPs. The maximum board power is 182W.

Both video cards will support PhysX processing on the GPU. NVIDIA purchased Ageia in early 2008.

[Source]

IBM & Los Alamos supercomputer might be as fast as your brain.

Not even a week after the new Roadrunner supercomputer was juiced up and put to work, scientists are hard at work trying to push the machine to its limits. Housed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the primary goal of the supercomputer is to model the safety of the United States' aging nuclear weapons stockpile. At over a certified petaflop, the machine renders calculations in a day that would take every person on Earth a calculator and 46 years to accomplish.

A supercomputer of this power will be incredibly useful for modeling things other than nuclear decay and global climate. At over a quadrillion – a million billion – calculations per second, Roadrunner is the only computer on Earth that can keep up with one of the few things more amazing than itself: the human brain.

Los Alamos researchers are putting this power to work with a program dubbed PetaVision. The program was created to model neuron and synapse interaction in the visual cortex of the human brain. The brain uses over a billion neurons and trillions of synapses alone to process the visual information it receives and is one of the most complicated processes known to exist in grey matter.

Supercomputers like Roadrunner bring new possibilities for modeling human recognition systems, and the advances are not likely to stop there. In the past, computers have been unable to flawlessly perform cognitive tasks that the human brain does easily; tasks like picking out a face in a crowd, or detecting oncoming vehicles in traffic. Such a large step up in processing power may enable scientists to breech this difficult wall in mimicry.

The researchers used PetaVision to set a processing record with Roadrunner, spinning up to an astonishing 1.144 petaflop/s. "Just a week after formal introduction of the machine to the world, we are already doing computational tasks that existed only in the realm of imagination a year ago,” explains Terry Wallace, associate director for Science, Technology and Engineering at Los Alamos.

The supercomputer's architecture is based on a hybrid node system. Each node contains two AMD Opteron dual-core and four PowerXCell 8i processers. The PowerXCell CPUs are derived from the same Cell processor used in the Sony Playstation 3 and act as computational accelerators for the Opterons.

Source from DailyTech

Intel says open host controller specifications have cost gazillions of dollars to develop

According to Intel’s Nick Knupffer, there are a lot of myths going around concerning USB 3.0 and Intel’s involvement in the development of the specification. Knupffer wrote a blog post on Intel’s website in an attempt to dispel these myths.

Knupffer points out that Intel is not developing the USB 3.0 specification. What Intel is developing is the host controller spec which Knupffer describes as a “Dummies Guide” to building a USB 3.0 compatible piece of silicon.

Knupffer says in the blog post that Intel has invested “gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours” in developing the open host controller and despite its significant investment still plans to give the specification to competing manufacturers for free. Knupffer also says that Intel loves it when CPU performance is used to the max and the huge increase in bandwidth of USB 3.0 will mean larger file transfers and more processor usage. This in turn is expected to lead to an increased demand for faster processors.

AMD and NVIDIA leveled allegations at Intel recently that claim Intel was withholding the open host controller specifications in an attempt to give itself a market advantage. Intel and AMD claim that by withholding the specification the lead Intel will have in bringing USB 3.0 compliant products to market will be in the six to nine month range.

Intel denied the allegations of withholding the open host controller specifications at the time AMD and NVIDIA made their charges public and announced they would be designing their own open host controller. In Knupffer’s blog post, he again says that Intel isn’t holding the open host controller specifications back from competitors.

According to Knupffer, the significant investment in the open host controller specifications is specifically to get USB 3.0 into the market faster, so why would it withhold the specification. Intel still maintains that the specifications aren’t ready and that it plans to give the specifications to other manufacturers in the second half of 2008.

The final myth that Knupffer addresses in his post is that USB 3.0 technology borrows heavily from technology used in PCI Express. Intel points out that it was involved with both the PCI-SIG and the USB-IF at the design stage for both PCI Express and for USB 3.0. The insinuation form Intel is that the technology that is similar in both devices was developed on its dime.

Source from DailyTech

Water conservation has been a widely encouraged practice for the better part of six or seven decades. Though along the way various forms of water transport and purification have sprung up, making life a little easier for people in climates that often experience droughts or simply live in deserts, it still remains an important part of day-to-day life in some of those. Most denizens of cities are probably familiar with the idea, but as most modern cities are well-plumbed, it doesn't add up to quiet the level of importance.

In Europe, according to English nongovernmental organization Waterwise, the water used by washing machines in the UK has risen 23 percent in the last 15 years, accounting for some 13 percent of daily consumption. Overall, the daily usage weighs in at around 455 million liters.

While 13 percent doesn't seem like a great deal and some may say that other things, like sanitary appliances should be examined for efficiency first, being more wasteful on the whole, the fact that nearly every single resident of a village, town, burb or city will have to at some point wash clothes, a more efficient machine to do so could be well-received in many locals.

Enter the Xeros. The washing machine, developed at the University of Leeds, breaks all previous efficiency records. It uses just a single cup of water for an entire load. The revolutionary machine could be in production as early as next year, according to Xeros Ltd, a company created specifically to develop and market the appliance.

Instead of soaking the load in water and detergent, the Xeros uses about 20 kilograms of small plastic chips to gather dirt and other particles which are dissolved by the single cup of water throughout the wash cycle. The chips measure about half a centimeter in size and though the developers recommend using fresh chips in each load, can be reused up to 100 times.

“This is one of the most surprising and remarkable technologies I've encountered in recent years,” said Dr. Rob Rule, director of Xeros Ltd. “Xeros has the ability to save billions of litres of water per year and, we believe, the potential to revolutionise the global laundry market.”

Source from DailyTech

Traditionally, 1.8" HDDs were only available with a 4200 RPM spindle speed, but the boost to 5400 RPM was a welcome addition to help improve performance on the smallest notebooks and UMPCs.
At the time of the announcement, Toshiba announced the availability of 80GB and 120GB models. Today, Toshiba's 5400 RPM 1.8" lineup is expanding to include a 160GB model and a revamped 80GB model.

The new 160GB (MK1617GSG) drive uses two platters while its new 80GB (MK8017GSG) counterpart used a single platter -- Toshiba's 80GB offering launched in February required two platters to reach the same capacity. Both drives feature 8MB of cache, 15ms average seek time, a micro-SATA connectors and comply with SATA 2.6 specifications.

"Toshiba's eight years in perfecting 1.8-inch HDD technology puts us in a unique position to address explosive growth in the mobility segment with proven products that deliver the performance and capacity that system manufacturers need," said Toshiba Storage Device Division Marketing VP, Maciek Brzeski.

At these capacities, our 1.8-inch HDDs are enabling the miniaturization of mobile PCs by providing better power consumption efficiency and improved ruggedness over larger form factors."

Toshiba’s new mobile HDDs will be available to OEMs in August of this year.

Toshiba's recent development in the area of 1.8" HDDs should give it more ammunition to go up against the increasing performance and falling costs of solid state drives (SSDs). Super Talent is currently leading all players in the SSD field by further driving down costs and recently introduced 30GB, 60GB, and 120GB 1.8" SSDs priced at $299, $449, and $679 respectively.

Source from DailyTech

The storage capacity and performance of hard drives used by desktop computers is growing all the time. Capacity isn’t the only thing to consider with a hard drive; the read/ write performance and cache size comes into play as well.
Western Digital has introduced a new Caviar Black line of hard drives that is available in both 750GB and 1TB storage capacities. The new drives have twice the normal cache size of typical drives with 32MB of high-performance cache memory. The Black edition drives also feature dual electronics architecture processors for twice the processing power.

The motor shaft on the drives is secured at both ends to reduce vibration and the technology is dubbed StableTrac. Western Digital also uses NoTouch ramp technology that prevents the recording head from touching the media for reduced wear and longer operational life. The Caviar Black line uses SATA 3.0 interface. The buffer to disk transfer rate is 145MB/s max.

The Caviar Black drives can withstand operating shock of 30G and a non-operating shock of 250G. At idle the drive produces 24 dBA of sound, seek mode 0 produces 33 dBA, and seek mode 3 produces 29 dBA of sound. The rotational speed of the drives is 7200 RPM.

Both the 750GB and 1TB drives will be available next week with the 750GB retailing for $199 and the 1TB retailing for $249. Western Digital didn’t comment on the platter size used in the new Black drives. Western Digital recently moved to 334GB platters for some of its other 1TB Caviar drives.

Source from DailyTech

With all the hoopla surrounding the announcement of the iPhone 3G, it’s pretty easy for other new products to get lost in all the madness. HP is looking to generate a bit of buzz of its own with two new computing products, but it unfortunately doesn’t have the power of the press to generate the insatiable tongue wagging that comes with a new Apple release.

That being said, HP’s latest new high-end products cover both the desktop and notebook fronts in the form of the Voodoo Omen gaming desktop and the Voodoo Envy 133 business laptop.

For gamers that have no limit on how much they are willing to spend on a gaming rig, look no further than Voodoo Omen. The towering desktop features a customizable, all-aluminum case design which can be optioned with Voodoo Allure paints and glass, leather, or wood side panels. Other exterior adornments include a 7" color auxiliary display (800x480) built into the front of the case to display game stats, movies, music videos, etc.


Other features include the ability to rotate the motherboard to plug in system cables from the top of the case, tool-less side panels, eight Voodoo Ink laser engraving designs, RGB accent lighting, and the ability to choose from five different colors for the liquid coolant.

When it comes to hard specs, the Voodoo Omen comes equipped with an ASUS Striker Extreme II motherboard which is paired with either an Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core 3.20GHz QX9770 or 3.00GHz QX9650 processor. Up to 8GB of 1600 MHz CORSAIR PC-14400 DDR3 can be ordered with the system as well. As expected with a high-end gaming rig, the Voodoo Omen supports NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFireX graphics options.

For those that truly want to splurge on storage options, the Voodoo Omen can be equipped with up to six 64GB Samsung single-level cell (SLC) solid-state drives (SSDs).

The customizable nature of the Voodoo Omen's chassis and the wealth of hardware choices mean that the gaming rig starts at a whopping $6,500. Checking off every option on the spec sheet will cause the price to balloon to $20,000.

On the notebook side of things, Voodoo is also announcing its 13.3" Envy 133. The notebook is just 0.70 inches thick (making it thinner than a MacBook Air) and weighs 3.373-pounds. Despite its thin chassis and light weight, Voodoo managed to cram quite a potent processor under the hood along with enough connectivity options to make certain Mac owners a bit jealous.

Processing power comes from either an Intel Core 2 Duo SP7000 (1.8GHz) or SP7500 (1.6GHz) processor. The 13.3" WXGA display is LED-backlit and is powered by an integrated Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor. Storage options include your choice of an 80GB 4200 RPM HDD or a 64GB SDD while optical duties are handled by an eSATA Super-Multi drive.

Voodoo also takes a page from Apple's playbook by including a gesturing touchpad which supports “multiple finger tracking, supporting chiral scrolling, pinch and momentum gestures”.

When it comes to port selection and wireless options, Voodoo doesn't disappoint. The Voodoo Envy comes equipped with one USB 2.0 port, one eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port, an ExpressCard 34 slot, and HDMI. Wireless duties are handled by an Intel 802.11n adapter and Bluetooth 2.0 is also included -- integrated mobile broadband is optional. As an added bonus, the Voodoo Envy's power adapter doubles as a WiFi access point.

The Voodoo Envy starts at $2,099.

Source from DailyTech

Scientist cook up a cooler way to produce polyethylene thin films.

One would pretty much have to be living under a rock in a developed nation to not have encountered polyethylene. The chains of ethylene or ethene monomers comprise a vast amount of products, from the ubiquitous plastic bag to film to implants. PE comes in various forms and densities and over 60 million tons of the material are produced yearly.

Though the production of PE is not particularly difficult in bulk, making ultra-thin films of the polymer have been notably more time and energy consuming. Typically, engineers create a dilute solution from an organic solvent and the polymer. To break up the crystalline structure of the polymer, heat must be applied to the solution. The solution can then be applied to a surface and the film forms when the solvent is cooled or removed.

A new method, devised by scientists at the University of Konstanz, removes the need for heating to dissolve the polymer into a solution by creating an aqueous solution of nanoscale crystals from the start. The catalyzation process involves ethylene and nickel complexes and produces crystals of about 25nm by 6nm in size.

To produce the film, droplets of the solution are applied to glass slides which are spun at 2,000 revolutions per minute. The spinning process removes the non-polymer substances. When all is said and done, a thin film of about 50nm in thickness is left behind.

The key to this technique lies in an amorphous, or non-crystalline, layer of PE on each of the crystals. Though the coating measures about 1nm in thickness, the interaction between each crystal's is very strong, holding the crystals in place while under the effects of the high speed spin.

Ultra-thin polymer coatings, especially polymers like polyethylene, which are completely harmless and environmentally inert, could be used for vast array of technologies from medical to electronics. Thin polymer films are already under investigation for uses in applications like bacterial growth prevention and incredibly durable rechargeable batteries.

Source from DailyTech