Bold is the first BlackBerry with GPS, Wi-Fi and HSDPA

For business pros and consumers across the country that are Smartphone aficionados, one of the most recognizable and popular devices is the BlackBerry. RIM announced its latest BlackBerry handset today called the BlackBerry Bold.

The Bold is the first BlackBerry device that offers tri-band support for HSDPA networks around the world and includes integrated GPS and Wi-Fi. The phone has a black exterior with satin chrome accents and a leather-like back plate.

A full QWERTY keyboard makes texting and web surfing easy and the Bold is compatible with 802.11a/b/g networks. The brain of the phone is a 624MHz processor and the device has 128MB of on-board flash memory and 1GB of on-board storage. Memory expansion for the device is via a microSD or microSDHC card slot.

All the applications expected on a BlackBerry are available including phone, email, messaging, organizer, and web browser. The Bold can also send and receive email or access the web while talking.

The LCD has a 480 x 320 resolution and is fused to the undersurface of the lens for clarity and sharpness. Web surfing on the Bold is done with a new enhanced browser that offers page view or column view. The page view allows for full computer style HTML pages to be viewed on the phone. A 2 megapixel digital camera is included that features a built-in flash and 5x digital zoom.

In addition to the tri-band HSDPA network compatibility the Bold is also a quad-band EDGE device. Other features of the handset include Bluetooth 2.0, voice activated dialing, speaker independent voice recognition and support for MP3, polyphonic, and MIDI ring tones. The device features a 1500 mAh battery with a talk time of 5 hours and a standby time of 13 days.

The BlackBerry network suffered from a significant failure back in February of 2008 due to a system update on servers in America. Since then the network has suffered from no serious downtime.

Source From DailyTech

Microsoft preps 65nm GPU for cooler Xbox 360s

Chip process evolution is a usual thing in a console’s lifecycle, but rarely has it been as important as in the case of the Xbox 360.

Known for its relatively hardware fragility, the original design of the Xbox 360 would frequently fall to the “Red Ring of Death” failure, which Microsoft terms as the three flashing red lights. While improvements in cooling and a CPU die shrink to 65nm in the Falcon revision have surely improved the situation, the problematic GPU still sits with its 90nm process.

The 65nm drop for the GPU in the Xbox 360 revision codenamed Jasper isn’t expected until August, a time frame backed up by a report from CENS. Microsoft has contracted Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE) and Nanya PCB Corp. to build the chips that will ship with the Jasper consoles later this summer.

TSMC will produce the 65nm chips, ASE will package and test them, and Nanya will supply the flip-chip packaging substrates. Microsoft has supposedly booked a production capacity at TSMC estimated to be at around 10,000 300mm wafers.

Inventory of the existing Falcon chips are reportedly depleted, paving the way for the transition to Jasper. The next step for the Xbox 360 console is dubbed “Valhalla,” which will integrate both the GPU and CPU in a single package as a cost-cutting measure, isn’t expected until a year after Jasper.

Source from DailyTech