People familiar with Apple’s plans have confirmed that the company developing the Mac operating system has booked a stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco for late January in what looks like a move dedicated to announcing the much-hyped tablet computer. Apple has historically used the respective venue for major announcements. Analysts trust Apple will finally release an oversized iPod touch specifically tailored for multimedia playback, and other purposes.

A Financial Times report cites unnamed sources as saying that, “The company has rented a stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco for several days in late January.” According to these people, “Apple is expected to use the venue to make a major product announcement on Tuesday, January 26th.” Apple has declined to comment on these claims, as did the people at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

For years, Apple has been experimenting with different technologies to achieve a satisfying input method for a tablet device. Some have recently dug out a document asserting that Apple has owned the iSlate.com domain since 2007, suggesting a move to secure the name (trademark) of the forthcoming device.


Just as relevant is the prognosis of one of the most vocal analysts on Apple matters, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray. Recently, the researcher speculated that an Apple event was imminent (in January), according to the Financial Times report. His words were, “We believe there is a 75 per cent likelihood that Apple will have an event in January and a 50 per cent chance that it will be held to launch the Apple Tablet.” “If Apple announced the Tablet in January, it would likely ship later in the March quarter,” he wrote in a new research note.

This is not the first time we hear this forecast, with Munster being just one of the analysts foreseeing an Apple tablet being designed in Cupertino. Apple is yet to confirm the rumored event. If this information is proven accurate, the Mac maker will most likely issue one of its typical press releases announcing the event schedule one to two weeks ahead.

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One laptop per Child (OLPC) has announced that it is moving closer to its goal of providing every child in the world with access to knowledge and modern forms of education. OLPC has revealed its roadmap for the creation of three new laptop models that will be released from 2010 through 2012. These computers are set not only to surpass the performance of the current XO but will have lower prices as well.

OLPC is a non-profit organization that aims to make modern forms of education accessible to all children in the world. As such, the XO laptops are designed powerful enough to meet these needs but are also built sturdy and resistant to the humidity and/or heat, which abounds in arid or tropical settlements. As such, the XO 1.5 and XO 1.75 will build upon the current design and will deliver better performance while becoming more accessible to the targeted consumer base. The more remote XO 3.0, however, will use an entirely new design.

The XO 1.5 will be based on the current XO industrial design and will become available by January 10. It will replace the currently used AMD processor with one from VIA and will also boast double the speed and four times more DRAM and FLASH memory. The system will be able to run both the Linux and the Windows operating systems and will cost about $200.


The second model OLPC is designing is the ARM processor-based XO 1.75. This will be more accessible to poor and rural communities, costing at most $175. The ARM chip from Marvell is set to double the processing speed while reducing power consumption to a quarter. The outside will be rubber-bumpered while the inside screen will be an 8.9-inch touch-sensitive display. The XO 1.75 is meant as a complement to the x86-based XO 1.5.

Lastly, OLPC is also working on an entirely new device which, the organization hopes, will cost much less than $100. The developers will focus on a design using a single sheet of flexible plastic. The goal is to create a device completely environment-proof, thanks to the total lack of holes, and will still deliver a performance at least as high as that of the X 1.75 model.

“The first version of OLPC’s child-centric laptop, the XO, is a revolution in low-cost, low-power computing. The XO has been distributed to more than 1.4 million children in 35 countries and in 25 languages,” said Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop per Child. “To fulfill our mission of reaching 500 million children in all remote corners of the planet, OLPC will continue to innovate in design and performance. Because we are a non-profit, we hope that industry will copy us.”

End-users may become more acquainted with the organization, its plans and the XO laptop by following this link to the official website.

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It seems that Final Fantasy XIII might be one of the biggest games of the year even if it is only released in Japan and on a single platform, the PlayStation 3 from Sony. The game, which was released on December 17, has managed to sell more than 1.5 million copies in just three days, topping the sale chart for the market and breaking the record held by Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, which was released in 2008.

The Famitsu magazine reports that some stores have run out of copies of Final Fantasy XIII as Square Enix is rushing to send in new stock. The publisher delivered close to 2 million units to retailers before the release date, about the same number as that initially put out for Final Fantasy XII that was released for the PlayStation 2.

A good chunk of the games sold are bundled with a special edition of the PS3, branded with the logo and images from the title, which is good news for Sony, which also gets to sell more of its devices.

Square Enix is saying that it expects Final Fantasy XIII to perform just as well in the West, when it arrives in March 2010. Although the game is a PS3 exclusive on the Japanese market, it will also be released on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft on other markets, in what marks a first for the series.

Square Enix has marked the new Japanese role playing title as one of the centerpieces of its strategy of attracting wider audiences outside of its core market.

Since it debuted in 1987, more than 92 million units of Final Fantasy-labeled games have been sold and the XIII installment in the series seems poised to be one of the biggest hits yet.

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Wireless carrier Vodafone Spain has recently announced the launch of a new device for its users, namely the SHOWWX pico projector. The carrier also added that the new innovative portable projector comes from Microvision Inc., a leading ultra-miniature projection display and image capture products provider all around the world.

The new SHOWWX pico projector has been designed to make use of revolutionary laser-based display technology, which enables it to deliver large, colorful and vivid images. Moreover, the device can project images that are in focus at all times, no matter the projection distance, the company announced. “We are proud that Vodafone Spain sells the SHOWWX for its customers. We believe that SHOWWX will provide a truly enhanced visual experience to Vodafone’s customers and greatly enhance functionality of their mobile devices,” Alexander Tokman, president and CEO of Microvision said.

The new device is a plug-n-play pico projector that offers users on the go the possibility to easily view and share various content, including mobile TV, movies, photos or presentations. The pocket-sized projector can be carried anywhere, plugged into portable media players, mobile phones or notebooks, or to any other mobile device that sports TV-Out or VGA functionality. The projected images can range from 12” to 150”, depending on the ambient light.

“The introduction of the Microvision SHOWWX laser pico projector in Spain presents a great opportunity for Vodafone to offer our customers new and exciting display capabilities to enhance the experience with their mobile devices,” explained Ignacio Roman, head of Terminals Spain and Portugal at Vodafone.

The new SHOWWX pico projector is available for Vodafone's customers from €289 (without vat). Moreover, users will be able to get it through the Points Program, which means that it will be cheaper. At the same time, the wireless carrier also noted that it will market the new device along with the Nokia N97 mini handset

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There are a lot of metrics for website traffic, unique visitors, user numbers, and the likes. Measuring a website's “influence” is a harder proposition though, it's not exactly something you can count. Some people beg to differ though and ://URLFAN aims to do just this, measure a website's influence by counting the number of mentions it gets on blogs. It's not the most objective metric out there, but it's probably as good as it gets and it's an interesting perspective.

The ReadWriteWeb blog put together a list of the top sites on the service and their standings a year ago. At this moment, despite the growing number of people predicting its demise, Wikipedia sits at the top as the most influential site on the planet. It's not much of a surprise this one, the crowd-sourced encyclopedia holds huge amounts of content and information which comes in handy when you're trying to put something in perspective or provide more background information.

Wikipedia is followed by YouTube and then Flickr, which have switched places since last year. Their presence is entirely expected, one being the most popular video site on the planet and the other being the most popular photo sharing site among bloggers, even if it's not the biggest in its category. Things only get interesting on fourth place where Twitter now resides up five places from last year. With the huge surge in popularity and users the microblogging site has seen this year, the rise is actually rather unspectacular, but the service was obviously a lot more popular with bloggers in 2008 than it was with the rest of the Internet population.

The other hyped up social media service of the moment, Facebook has also shot up quite a few places entering the top 10 at the seventh place. With 325 million users and a warmer attitude towards making content public, the social networking mammoth will probably only get more influential and it should be interesting to see how it will compete with Twitter in 2010. There certainly other ways of measuring online influence but ://URLFAN's is interesting as it puts more weight on people's opinions rather than just cold numbers.

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It appears that the recent reports on the Internet have been correct and that the Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices has now detailed its latest Radeon graphics card, the much-anticipated HD 5970, a dual-GPU monster designed to be the fastest graphics card in the world. Featuring full support for Microsoft's DirectX 11 and the company's recently introduced Eyefinity multi-display technology, this card is expected to deliver a noticeable performance boost over any other card that is currently available on the market.

“With the arrival of the ATI Radeon HD 5970, the fastest graphics card in the world, we’ve cemented AMD as the unquestioned graphics leader,” said Matt Skynner, vice president and general manager, AMD Graphics Group. “With the holiday shopping season right around the corner, the new card, coupled with the awesome power of ATI Eyefinity technology, is the ultimate setup for serious gamers.”

Getting right down to the technical specifications of the new card, it looks like previous reports have been right on target, as it comes with a GPU clock speed of 725MHz and a processing power, for single precision, of 4.64 TeraFLOPS. The new Radeon card comes with 2GB of GDDR5 memory that was clocked at 1GHz (with 4GHz data date), and 2 x 2.15 Billion transistors. There are 3200 Stream Processors, 160 Texture units and 64 ROPs, while the card's TDP has been specified at a maximum of 294W. Interestingly enough, according to AMD, it reaches 42W in idle mode, something that has been enabled by a unique feature that will disable one of the GPUs, when the PC is in Idle.

One thing you should keep in mind is that, this is a monster of a card, by all definitions. It's design might lead to some modifications of your ATX chassis, as this card is 13.3-inches long, which could raise some problems, even for owners of full-tower cases.

With those specs and the fact that NVIDIA currently has nothing on the market that could beat the Radeon HD 5970, expect prices to be high. In fact, according to the world's second largest chip maker, these cards will be available for a MSRP of US$599. The prices are likely to go down when NVIDIA launches its Fermi-based cards, or by the time the 40nm yields at TSMC would improve.

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Telecom service provider Deutsche Telekom is reportedly looking out for partners for its U.S. Subsidiary, T-Mobile USA, and might consider teaming up with AT&T, Clearwire or MetroPCS, recent reports suggest. Moreover, it seems that there might also be the perspective of unnamed financial investors from outside the wireless industry, at leas this is what the German newspaper Handelsblatt states, cited by fiercewireless.

“The report, citing unnamed sources from the German telecom giant, said that the company is looking for a partner to help finance T-Mobile's network expansion. If Deutsche Telekom were to partner with a financial firm, the paper reported, that company might take a minority stake in T-Mobile. The carrier, the nation's fourth largest, is in the midst of building out its 3G network, and plans to upgrade its network to HSPA+ beginning next year to capitalize on the growing demand for mobile data,” the news site notes.

Deutsche Telekom has been said a few times before to plan including its US subsidiary in a joint-venture, and a Bloomberg report from September suggested that Clearwire and MetroPCS were possible partners for T-Mobile. According to the report, the aim was gaining access to the spectrum holdings of the partner companies.

Some other rumors that emerged earlier into the wild suggested that Deutsche Telekom would be interested in the purchase of Sprint Nextel, yet it seems that the deal is off now. The talks with the aforementioned partners appears to be only in their early stages, yet AT&T, Clearwire and Deutsche Telekom declined to comment on the deal.

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Microsoft will make available the next update to the service it has built around its Xbox console, come next week. Larry Hryb, the director of programming for the Microsoft gaming network Xbox Live, revealed that the Redmond company would offer all members of the Xbox LIVE community the latest refresh to the service starting with November 17, 2009. At the time of this article, the Xbox LIVE update has been already offered to a select pool of testers. However, it appears that Microsoft’s Preview Program for the upcoming Xbox LIVE Update will soon be shut down, as the company will start delivering the fully-fledged refresh.

“I know some of you are already enjoying many of these features through the Preview Program, but I am happy to announce that the next update that contains Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and Zune video will be available to all Xbox LIVE members launch Nov. 17,” Hryb noted.

When it comes to the Windows LIVE update there are a few things that Xbox console users need to be aware of. First off, the refresh is designed to kill unauthorized memory units. The Redmond company made it clear in October, when it debuted the Preview Program, that it would tackle the usage of unauthorized memory units with Xbox 360 consoles.

In addition, not all users will be free to enjoy the new enhanced social networking capabilities of Xbox LIVE. Testers that have been running the public preview and that were younger than 18 were cut off from accessing Twitter, Facebook, or Last.fm. This situation will not change after Microsoft will release the fully-fledged update.

“We made this decision because as it stands now, parents aren’t able to use Family Settings to customize which of these applications their children can access. In order to offer an age-appropriate environment for everyone, we decided to turn off these applications for those Gold members under the age of 18. As expected, this has been a hot topic with the preview users. We want to make sure everyone was aware, however, that the development team is working on an update that gives parents the choice of which social applications their children can access. This means that Xbox LIVE members between the ages of 13 and 17 will be able to use Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm as long as their parents approve,” Hryb added.

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Microsoft’s Simon Aldous has been talking through his hat, the Windows maker claims, when the company's partner group manager stated that Microsoft tried to “create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics” for Windows 7. As reports circulating on the Internet say, Aldous appeared to admit that Microsoft had looked at Mac OS X for inspiration. Microsoft vehemently denies this.

Via Neowin, the full quote from the respective interview has been reproduced below.One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it's very graphical and easy to use. What we've tried to do with Windows 7 – whether it's traditional format or in a touch format – is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics. We've significantly improved the graphical user interface, but it's built on that very stable core Vista technology, which is far more stable than the current Mac platform, for instance.

As the same report reveals, the people in Redmond immediately issued a counter-statement revealing that Aldous' comments were not only “inaccurate,” but downright “uninformed.” In a post on the Windows Team blog, Microsoft blogger Brandon LeBlanc stated the following:

An inaccurate quote has been floating around the Internet today about the design origins of Windows 7 and whether its look and feel was “borrowed” from Mac OS X. Unfortunately this came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7. I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed.

While Microsoft cannot possibly admit Windows 7 mimics Mac OS X, the Redmond giant can’t hide the obvious – a great deal of people (and vocal ones, may we add) have given their verdict: Windows 7 does look like Mac OS X from quite a few perspectives. However, as this editor has stressed over and over again, there is a thin line between copying a product and using universally intuitive solutions for graphics, functionality, etc. There’s a limit to how much things can be changed just to be different from each other, yet still work for the customer. Do share your own opinion in the comments.

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Google's most hotly anticipated project, the brand-new, web-based operating system Chrome OS, is about to become a reality if rumors about its impending launch as soon as next week turn out to be true. When it first announced the project, Google said that the first public release should come this fall so this wouldn't be too much of a surprise. There's not much info aside from the fact that it will be launched and any type of details about Chrome OS have been scarce so far, so there's plenty of anticipation in the tech crowd to see just what Google cooked up.

The rumor comes from the TechCrunch blog which has been on somewhat of a roll lately with rumors about Google. Adding the fact that we already knew that Chrome OS would hit at around this date, the info seems solid enough. But don't get your hopes up yet, just because Google is launching the OS doesn't exactly mean that you'll be able to pop it into any computer or laptop and run it. It's likely that it's at a pretty unpolished state and Google previously said that Chrome OS wouldn't be ready for the market at least until the second half of 2010.

Hardware support is one of the biggest issues at this point. Chrome OS is based on the Linux kernel so, in theory, at the low level, it should have some very good driver support. It's unclear though what kind of changes Google has made and how far along the other components of the OS are to take advantage of the hardware capabilities. Google is building Chrome OS with netbooks in mind, so chances are that some of the more popular machines like Asus' Eee PC will probably work right off the bat.

But even if you can install it and run it, it doesn't mean that there will bemuch to look at, from a user's view point, Chrome OS will most likely be very lacking at this point. This release is meant to get developers familiar with the platform and give hardware manufacturers enough time to get used to it, before presumably starting to ship machines with Chrome OS. Anyway, even so there's plenty to be excited about, we'll finally get a look at the mysterious GUI Google has been working on and see how the company has adapted the more system-oriented tasks to an OS designed for the cloud. There have been some clues already, but the speculation should end soon enough.

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The chatter is once again picking up around FriendFeed, the real-time social aggregator Facebook acquired a couple of months ago. At the time of the deal many were left wondering about the fate of the service which, despite not becoming as successful as hoped, managed to secure a core of loyal users and to stay ahead in the innovation department. Not much has been said since, and despite claims that the service won't be shut down, users have mostly abandoned it.

Now FriendFeed cofounder Paul Bucheit has decided to come out with some clarifications though the future of the service is as vague as ever. “There was a lot of chatter about the future of FriendFeed this weekend. The short answer is that the team is working on a couple of longer-term projects that will help bring FriendFeedy goodness to the larger world. Transformation is not the end. Consider this the chrysalis stage — if all goes well, a beautiful butterfly will emerge,” Bucheit wrote in a FriendFeed post.

The message tries to be reassuring but ends up confirming the rather bleak future that awaits FriendFeed in its current form. A couple of preeminent bloggers, both great supporters of FriendFeed, raised concerns about the future of the service and the fact that the activity on the site died down after the news of the acquisition. Everything is still there, in terms of features and functionality, but nobody wants to invest in a dead service.


At the time of the acquisition, many argued that Facebook bought FriendFeed for its talent, as the service was backed by a small but all-star team of engineers. The four cofounders are all ex-googlers and were behind products like Gmail and Google Maps. Facebook is no doubt at work integrating some of FriendFeed's best features but it may be a while until the social network can be seen as a proper replacement if ever. The project may very well be open-sourced – an underlying component has already been released as an open-source project – but this won't help save FriendFeed either. Something may still pop up but as time passes the service is losing even more users.

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Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices has announced today the debut of a couple of new desktop processors, part of the company's extending line of Athlon II chips. With Windows 7 just around the corner, these new parts are expected to provide system builders and users alike with a choice for an affordable CPU that can also perform decently for its price range. The new lineup of Athlon II CPUsincludes dual-core,triple-core and quad-core models in total of eight new chips, six of which are part of the chip maker’s energy-efficient lineup.

The lowest priced model, announced today by the world's second largest PC manufacturer is the dual-core Athlon II X2 235e, designed to provide consumers with a clock speed of 2.7GHz and a TDP of 45W. As a matter of fact, all of AMD's new energy-efficient Athlon II processors have been designed with a 45W TDP. The aforementioned 235e model will become available for a price tag of US$69, in thousand-unit quantities, according to AMD.


The new lineup includes the Athlon II X2 240e, 400e, 405e, 600e and 605e, all of which are designed to work with a TDP of 45W and sport clock speeds of 2.8GHz, 2.2GHz, 2.3GHz, 2.2GHz and 2.3GHz, respectively. The Athlon II X2 400e and 405e models are part of AMD's triple-core offering, while the last two are part of the expanding line of quad-core CPUs. Price wise, these models are rated at prices of US$77, US$99, US$102, US$133 and US$143, respectively.



In addition to all of the aforementioned models, the chip maker also announced the triple-core Athlon II X3 425 and Athlon II X3 435, designed with a 95W TDP and core speeds of 2.7GHz and 2.9GHz, respectively. These two will be made available for US$76 and US$86 in thousand-unit quantities and according to early reviews users should be very pleased with the performance/price ratio that the US$435 model offers, especially when compared to similarly-priced Intel Core 2 Duos.

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Microsoft is not only hard at work cooking the next iteration of the Office System for Windows users, but also the next version of Office for Mac. In this regard, the Redmond-based company has announced that the successor of Office 2008 for Mac will be offered to customers next year, ahead of the holiday season. Office 2010 for Windows is also planned for release in 2010, however, ahead of the general availability of the next iteration of Office for Mac, namely in the first half of the coming year. With the successor of Office 2008 for Mac, Microsoft will kill the Entourage for Mac email client, which will be replaced with Outlook for Mac.

“It is an exciting time for the MacBU [Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit] with updates to our current products and the first public announcement about the next version of Office for Mac. For several years we have focused on providing the best Microsoft Exchange client for the Mac, and the Web Services Edition delivers that today for Entourage users,” revealed Eric Wilfrid, general manager for the MacBU at Microsoft. “Outlook for Mac will bring features our customers have long requested — such as Information Rights Management — that make working across platforms even easier. I think people will see that this move to Outlook for Mac is more than just a name change.”

In a move designed to simplify the Office for Mac SKU lineup, MacBU informed that it would introduce the Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition on top of the current offering of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition. The software giant explained that Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition would be available for purchase come September 15, 2009, with customers being able to pre-order it on August 18. The new SKU will cost $399.95 and $239.95 for Version Upgrade. For current Entourage users, the Redmond-based company is already offering Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition today.

“Microsoft Outlook and Exchange Server have been a cornerstone of communications and collaboration for our enterprise customers,” added Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of the Office product management group at Microsoft. “Today’s release of the Web Services Edition strengthens Exchange connectivity for Entourage customers and sets the stage for the move to the new application — Outlook for Mac. These updates continue Microsoft and the MacBU’s tradition of delivering the most complete solution to help customers manage their time, and better share their information and collaborate with others.”

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An investigation carried out by Sky News uncovered severe abuses of trust in computer repair shops around London. Technicians purposely misdiagnosed a simple problem in order to charge more, while others rifled through or copied documents clearly marked as private.

Sky News reporters took a brand-new laptop with Windows installed on it, loosened a memory module so that the operating system would not boot anymore, and took it at six different computer repair shops, some of them being pretty renowned. In addition to the easy-to-fix technical problem, the laptop was rigged with keylogging software and the web camera was set to start recording once Windows booted. A folder called "private" containing photos of a woman in bikini and a document comprising fake login details for email, social networking and online banking accounts was also planted.

The conclusions were that computer repair shop employees could seriously abuse the trust that customers placed in them, most of the times without even realizing. A single repair shop from the ones investigated treated the problem professionally by identifying it, addressing it and even charging no money for the simple job.

Three of the shops said that a new motherboard was required, after they had actually discovered the real problem and fixed it, thus showing a clear intention of deceiving the customers. For one of the shops, the undercover reporter refused to pay for a new motherboard and the technicians soldered the memory-bus pins together.

But the abuse goes much deeper and probably becomes more illegal too. At two of the shops, employees rifled through the personal pictures and even called in other colleagues to watch them together. One particular creepy technician even copied the photos into a folder on his memory stick, called "mamma jammas." He then went on and tried to use the login credentials found in the private folder, giving up after five minutes of trying to access the accounts that, obviously, weren't his.

The results of this investigation raise serious questions about how less technical users should go about fixing their computers while protecting their privacy at the same time. If the problem is with the hardware, one could plug the HDD out and leave the shop to repair the computer using their own hard drive for tests. However, this implies a novice user figuring out that the problem is hardware-related and that they know how to remove an HDD, which can be difficult, especially for laptops.

In order to overcome these issues, it is better to ask the technician to inspect the computer and diagnose the problem right in front of you, if possible. If they determine that the problem is not HDD-related, ask them to remove the hard disk and give it to you. If the problem is software-related (operating system), you might be forced to leave the HDD, in which case it is better to move all the personal documents to a folder and encrypt it with specific software in advance.

Even with all these precautions, it is impossible to cover all scenarios. Moving browsing history, saved-form information, locally stored emails, etc., to the encrypted folder, and then deleting them from their usual location might be too much of a challenge for the less knowledgeable. Because of this, it is always a good idea to call a friend who is more computer-literate to assist you with such tasks.

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Late last month there were some reports indicating that the world's leading chip maker Intel was planning to update its line of Solid State Drives with the introduction of the new 32nm-based solutions. The launch of the new SSDs was supposed to occur in the following two weeks from the report,consequently providing end-users with a choice for a more energy-efficient alternative to other SSDs on the market. However, it now appears
that the much-anticipated SSDs will make their debut early next week, on Tuesday.

The news comes from a recent article on the Inquirer, where the first round of rumors initially surfaced approximately two weeks ago. According to them, new information that they have just come across, indicates that Intel will launch the next-generation SSDs on the 21st of July, which is next-week, on Tuesday. These new Flash-based storage solutions will be powered by the new 32nm flash chips and will provide users with an increase of energy efficiency, better price tag and higher storage capacities.



Intel's upcoming SSDs are expected to become available in capacities of 320GB, 160GB and 80GB and deliver a boost of energy efficiency, compared to the chip maker's previous generation of SSDs. They will most likely be launched in a notebook-ready 2.5-inch form factor and could prove as a noteworthy alternative to other SSDs currently available on the market.

The Inquirer further reports that Intel's new SSDs have also been designed to address a different issue that has been encountered in the adoption of SSDs as a general storage solution. Apparently, these new drives will be considerably cheaper than their direct competitors, which will allow Intel to increase its share in this still growing market. To find out whether that will be the case, we still have to wait a couple of days, until the Santa Clara, California-based chip maker decides to take the official wraps off its new products.

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Facebook is becoming more like Twitter everyday, but, with the micro-blogging platform's huge success, it's understandable. First, there was the redesigned News Feed, showing all the status updates from all your friends, not so much unlike Twitter. Then came the new “real-time” search features that are currently just in beta. And now, there is the “everyone” button, currently the first option when publishing an update, which will make it easier for you to make your status updates and other content public.

“Today, we're launching a beta version of an improved Publisher – the main place to add content such as photos, videos, and status updates on your home page and profile. The new Publisher has been streamlined a bit, and its most significant improvement is the new Publisher Privacy Control that gives you the opportunity to answer the question, 'Who do you want to tell?' as easily as you answer the question, 'What's on your mind?,'” the Facebook blog said.

The new feature is just in beta and only available to those who have already had their default privacy option set to “Everyone.” The default options for the “publisher” are now Everyone, Friends and Networks, Friends of Friends, Friends and, if you want to specify certain friends or lists, there is the Custom option. At first, this may seem like a small, insignificant change, but, coupled with the other small, insignificant changes Facebook has been rolling out, a trend emerges. A trend that spells Twitter.

Facebook has been traditionally very walled off with much of the content not available to the public. Arguably, this strategy is what allowed it to overtake MySpace and become the largest social network in the world and the US. And, while Twitter may have grown at a huge rate for a couple of months, though it looks like the rate is slowing, with its 18 million users, it is still no threat to the social networking giant, which has more than 200 million registered users. Apparently, Facebook isn't taking any chances and is moving towards a more open approach.

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Acer, one of the world's leading vendors of portable computer systems, is expecting to register better notebook shipments in September, with the help of Microsoft's much-anticipated Windows 7 operating system, according to the company's chairman words in a recent news report. JT Wang also explains that notebook shipments are expected to remain flat through July and August.

In a recent news article on Digitimes, Acer's Chairman, JT Wang, has provided an insight into the company's business expectations for the upcoming months, in the notebook market segment. According to Mr. Wang, the market status still remains at low levels in both the European and the US markets, while China is proving to be a segment for Acer. These expectations are largely based on the status of the current global economy, which is said to have hit bottom. It is yet unclear when the market is going to see a complete recovery, Mr. Wang notes.

The report also makes some corrections regarding the company's expectations in the smartphone market, which is a new segment for Acer and where the company will see a strong competition from the already established vendors. According to Mr. Wang, Acer is aiming to break the one-million-unit threshold in 2010, in the smartphone market. This is a more cautious statement, as compared with the one made by Aymar de Lencquesaing, from the company's Smart Handheld Business Group, who recently forecast that the company would ship 2 – 2.5 million smartphones in 2010.

Acer is currently aiming to strengthen its market position in the notebook sector, with the company placing a significant importance on some of today's fast-growing segments, including notebooks and ultrathin portable computer systems. These segments are expected to grow higher in the upcoming months, before the end of the year, as Microsoft is preparing to launch its next-generation operating system, Windows 7.

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We all know that Gears of War 3 will be released, probably at some point in late 2010. But any new tidbit of information related to the third title in the franchise is still welcome news for the fans that have finished Gears of War 2 and all the extra content that developers Epic Games have put out since release.

A presentation at the 2007 edition of the GDC and various statements from Epic developers were the most telling in relation to the intentions of Epic, until now.

Cliff Blezinski, one of the biggest driving forces behind the franchise, recently sat down with the people at the Official Xbox Magazine UK and told them about the projects he was working on.

He said that “There's only been two Gears games, man. There's still plenty of opportunities for things you can do in a cover-based shooter, and there's still a lot of stories to tell in the Gears universe. I'm not burned out on that at all.” The developer added that recent rumors that his company was working on a survival horror title were unfounded.

On July 28, gamers are set to receive a new content pack for Gears of War 2, titled Dark Corners. It will offer players a new chapter in the single player story, which did not make it in the initial release of the game, called Road to Ruin. The package, which will be available as adownload from Xbox Live, is also set to offer seven new multiplayer maps and will be sold for the low price of 19.99 dollars.

Gears of War has single handedly managed to make the cover-oriented shooter one of the most important genres for console games and has managed to become Epic's most important franchise, with the previous star, Unreal Tournament, turning into a shadow of its former self.

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With the Iran protests still going and social media platforms getting a lot of attention in the process Google has decided to add the Persian (Farsi) language to its Google Translate service. The company rushed the Persian language support because of the unfolding events in Iran so there may still be problems with the service.

“We feel that launching Persian is particularly important now, given ongoing events in Iran. Like YouTube and other services, Google Translate is one more tool that Persian speakers can use to communicate directly to the world, and vice versa — increasing everyone's access to information,” wrote Franz Och, principal scientist, on the Google blog. “As with all machine translation, it's not perfect yet. And we're launching this service quickly, so it may perform slowly at times. We'll keep a close watch and if it breaks, we'll restore service as quickly as we can.”

Social media tools, especially Twitter, have played a big role in the Iran protests by keeping the outside world informed or at least focused on the events. But with all the traditional and social media attention much of the reports have been conflicting and confusing so a tool like Google Translate may prove very useful in getting information in and out of the country. The Mountain View-based company warns that the translations are far from perfect and that currently the service is only optimized for English-Persian translations but it is working on adding support for all the 40 languages available in Google Translate.

“The web provides many new channels of communication that enable us to see events unfold in real-time around the world. We hope that Google Translate helps make all that information accessible to you — no matter what language you speak. So please visit Google Translate and try it out,” Och ended.

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ASRock, one of the world’s leading vendors of motherboards and computer platforms, has recently expanded its product offering with the introduction of yet another X58-based motherboard, adding to the company's already launched X58 'SuperComputer' and 'Deluxe' models. The new solution, dubbed X58 Extreme, has already been showcased at Computex and is expected to make its way on the shelves of retailers worldwide. As with the other Core i7 platforms, the new motherboard is ready to provide users with support for the latest hardware components on the market.

The ASRock X58 Extreme is clearly intended for high-end users and computer enthusiasts, as it's built to support Intel's fastest processors to date, as well as multi-GPU technologies from both NVIDIA and AMD. The board boasts an advanced V8 Power Phase Design, Intel XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) memory, CrossFireX and SLI technologies as well as ASRock's Smart BIOS, OC Tuner and Intelligent Energy Saver features.

As with other X58 platforms, the system is ready for Intel's latest Core i7 CPU, including the newly released Core i7 975. There are six, triple-channel DDR3 memory DIMMs with support for up to 24GB of memory, three PCI-Express x16 graphics slots for high-end graphics and 6 SATA II connectors. Among some of the unique features that ASRock has enabled on its latest platform, we must highlight the Hybrid Booster, which includes a CPU Frequency Stepless Control, the ASRock U-COP and the Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.).

Unfortunately, there are no details available regarding the board's pricing and availability, but it should make its way on the shelves of local retailers very soon, adding to the company's growing line of Core i7-supporting platforms. With the launch of the latest model, ASRock looks to provide its customers with a complete line of Intel-based platforms.

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IBM has just announced a new solution designed to help business customers reduce their costs by turning to the company's latest version of Lotus Symphony, a productivity suite designed as an alternative to Microsoft's Office. According to IBM, customers could save up to hundreds of dollars on each of their Microsoft Office licenses with the help of the new Lotus Symphony version 1.3, which can be easily downloaded,

free of charge from one of the company's web pages. The Lotus Symphony will provide users with support for their current Microsoft Office 2007 documents, which can be accessed through IBM's ODF-based solution.

“IBM is delivering on its commitment to free businesses and consumers from having to pay licensing fees over and over just to access their own personal or company information,” said Kevin Cavanaugh, VP of Lotus Software. “Now, it will be much harder to justify paying Office licensing fees when you can preserve and access your Office documents for free using Lotus Symphony”

With the release of the new Lotus Symphony productivity suite, IBM is trying to provide its clients with an alternative to Microsoft's highly successful Office suite. According to the Armonk, New York-based company, this new solution could translate into millions of dollars in savings at many large enterprises looking for a way to reduce costs during an ongoing low market economy.

The latest version also adds up a couple of new features, including the possibility for users to drag-and-drop plug-ins, consequently extending the use of Symphony to other business applications. The suite also adds support for Microsoft's Office 2007 file formats and provides animation for presentations that can interoperate with Microsoft's PowerPoint presentations.

IBM's new Symphony Lotus productivity suite is already available for download via this web page, providing users with a free-of-charge alternative to Microsoft's Windows Office.

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After a painfully long wait, Apple has finally released the much-hyped iPhone 3.0 Software Update, delivering improved functionality and tons of new features to iPhone and iPod touch users worldwide. Two days from now, the iPhone 3G S will also be available to the public. The device will “unlock” the complete set of new features available with iPhone OS 3.0.

“The new iPhone OS 3.0 is a major software release packed with incredible new features and innovations for iPhone customers and developers alike. It will keep us years ahead of the competition,” said Philip Schiller (Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing) back in March, when the company previewed the first developer beta of iPhone OS 3.0.

The OS 3.0 software update contains more than 100 new features for both iPhone and iPod touch users, including Cut, Copy and Paste, MMS (available later this summer, only for the 3G model), Spotlight Search, landscape keyboard for Mail, Messages, Notes and Safari, expanded parental controls for TV shows, movies and apps from the App Store, video-recording and editing capabilities, the ability to capture and send audio recordings on the go with the new Voice Memo app, the ability to wirelessly download movies, TV and audio programs, Stereo Bluetooth and P2P support, as well as an enhanced version of iTunes. Students will be able to download learning materials on the go, using iTunes U.

iPhone users can download the new iPhone OS 3.0 software for free, while iPod touch customers must purchase the software update for $9.95 (US). The appropriate method to download and install the new OS version is by connecting your device to iTunes on your computer. Wait for the application to recognize it and choose “Check for Update.” iTunes should automatically find the new software and download it for you, after which the installation process begins. Users can also download the iPhone1,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw and the iPhone1,2_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw files for future use.

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For those of you considering to spend your savings on the iPhone 3G S, IF you are even eligible for the $199 upgrade, think again. If you are happy with the offerings of your current iPhone, it may be useful to know that iPhone 3G S doesn’t pack all that many “new” features, as Apple has you thinking. Nope, iPhone OS 3.0 does.

First off, note that if you do not qualify for the $199 iPhone 3G S (requires a new, two-year AT&T rate plan, sold separately), the 16GB device actually costs a pocket-burning $599 ($699 for the 32GB model). Customers also pay a fee of around 20 bucks for setting up the device in-store. Now, if you don’t need 3 megapixels instead of 2, or don’t care much for that digital compass, which many don’t even know what is used for (or whether they actually need it), consider this.

During the WWDC '09 keynote address delivered by the company’s SVP of Product Marketing, Apple revealed that iPhone 3G S would ship with iPhone OS 3.0 pre-installed, offering users a wide range of new features. While the allegation is correct, readers should note that iPhone OS 3.0 alone brings most of that new functionality, and it does so for both iPhone 3G users, as well as for iPhone 2G handset owners. In other words, you needn’t an iPhone 3G S for, say, MMS, Cut/Copy/Paste, Spotlight search, Voice Memos, Landscape Keyboard, Parental Controls and Tethering. All these are OS 3.0-specific additions, and they can be handled just as well on first-generation iPhone hardware.

Admittedly, the iPhone 3G S is said to deliver an improved battery performance, a better processor, a better camera, video recording, voice control, that digital compass mentioned a bit earlier, and (perhaps) a better screen. But the differences aren’t overwhelming. Again, if you’re happy with your current device, why let something like this “ruin” your experience? It’s totally up to you to decide whether you need these new features, or whether you can do without them. Best of all, as an iPhone owner, you get OS 3.0 for free. iPod touch users must cough out almost ten bucks to have the new features. The update is scheduled to become available later this week (June 17).

Readers are encouraged to share their impressions with us on this sensitive topic.

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During this year’s Computex 2009 show, NVIDIA took the stage with a number of new Ion- and Tegra-based products, showcased by some of the company’s partners. Despite rumors prior to the debut of the computer show in Taiwan, the Santa Clara, California-based graphics maker didn’t reveal any details regarding its much-anticipated 40nm-based graphics processing units. However, the launch of the new Ion-based PCs, as well as the highly anticipated Tegra devices, confirmed NVIDIA’s business orientation, becoming a company that is involved in more than just graphics.

While we weren’t able to make it to Computex ourselves, we looked for the chance to find out more about what the graphics maker is preparing in the near future, as well as the company’s opinion on the current computer industry. The opportunity was just around the corner, as NVIDIA was actively promoting its latest technologies around the world, holding press events to demonstrate some of the things that were on display at Computex. We took this opportunity and sat down for a one-on-one with the company’s Igor Stanek, Product PR Manager for our region. We wanted to go through some of the most important aspects of the manufacturer’s business, taking into consideration the latest rumors that surfaced on the Internet.

Mr. Igor Stanek was kind enough to provide us with a perspective on what NVIDIA is focusing on, as well as on what to expect from the future line of ARM-based Tegra devices. Unfortunately, we could not find anything about the much-rumored next-generation GPU architecture, allegedly called GT300, whose existence is still a mystery. However, we do have some useful insights into what is to come from NVIDIA. Now, without further ado, we will let you go through the interview itself.

NVIDIA is evolving from a company that was mainly focused on delivering graphics cards for computer enthusiasts and supporting the latest games in the industry to one that is set on providing solutions that could power a complete computer system. What can you tell us about that?

I.S: GPUs are used by gamers around the world to play the latest games at their best. GPUs though have become a power warehouse, thanks to their parallel architecture. The industry and the scientists have now realized that they can use this incredible parallel computing architecture to do other things than games. CPUs are no longer increasing in clock speed yet consumers are demanding more from their PCs today than ever before. In order to provide the much needed performance to deliver on these consumer expectations, the only path available is to go multi-core or parallel – i.e., add more cores and split demanding workloads across them. Due to the very nature of computer graphics, GPUs excel at doing many things at once and are ideally suited to this new heterogeneous computing environment. If you look at what Microsoft and Apple are working on with their new OSes you understand how GPUs are rapidly becoming the most desired chip inside the PC; the upcoming Windows 7 and Snow Leopard use GPU to full extent.

Scientists are using it to accelerate calculation by a factor they were never able to achieve before with CPUs. We consider ourselves a company that provides specific solutions to the resolution of complex problems; whether they are common or most complex ones in medical, astrophysics and more. We develop tailored solutions in different fields; one example is our Quadro business where we develop products that solve specific problems like SDI capture, multi display financial visualization. Dedicated 1U GPU racks, etc.

After seeing all those new Tegra-based and ARM-based devices at Computex this year, can you project a future where an ARM-based device can provide users with everyday computing?

I.S: It all depends on your definition of everyday computing. When you use a Tegra chip your everyday computing is not limited to typing email and surf the web; you expect things that you do on your regular PC but in a smaller footprint. These devices deliver desktop-class Internet browsing with Flash video and animation acceleration and high-definition video playback, all with cell phone-class power management – making days of HD mobile Internet experiences a reality.

Consumers are looking for an always-connected device for social media applications such as Facebook and YouTube, as well as great multimedia performance for recording and watching HD movies and videos on the go. Tegra includes an entire computer-on-a-chip, including an ARM 11 core processor, so to answer your question, yes Tegra, which includes an ARM process, is a fully capable and modern device that fits your communications and entertainment device in your pocket.

Putting that into perspective, can we think about a future without x86?

I.S: I don’t think anybody is saying x86 is out of the picture, but CPUs are losing their breath and GPUs becoming much more important. It’s very simple. Just check how much time you need for transcoding of video on ION and how powerful CPU you need to match ION speed. I think that future is in well balanced PC with CPU and GPU living in harmony. CPU will have more control tasks in operating system and GPU will be focused for most of visual computing staff including some heavy computational tasks. This is the architecture of the future. I believe that PC with 1000 USD CPU and Intel integrated graphics card is already history.

Tegra has been one of the main highlights at Computex this year. How important is Tegra for your future product lineup?

I.S: Tegra is a strategic line of products for NVIDIA. The world is going mobile and expectations are for low power always on, always connected and powerful devices that can do HD is growing rapidly.

Should we expect more Tegra devices to become available in the near future?

I.S: The response from our customers is phenomenal. Tegra is strategic to us and we have a great roadmap that we are sharing with our ecosystem, as I said our partners are extremely satisfied with performance, features and especially the low power used by these devices. We cannot announce products on behalf of our customers, but there are many coming

Do you think Microsoft will play a significant role in the adoption of Tegra?

I.S: Microsoft Windows Embedded CE is a great operating system and we support it with our Tegra devices. We do also provide support for Google Android.

Can you tell us something about the alleged GT300 that has been rumored in the media recently?
I.S: I am not aware of that code name.

What can you tell us about your next-generation chips, transitioning from 55nm to 40nm?

I.S: We don’t comment about unannounced products.

There were reports about TSMC’s problems with their 40nm manufacturing node. What can you tell us about that?

I.S: That is a question you should ask TSMC. We have new mobile parts being announced shortly that will be using 40nm process. It’s not all about process though; it’s also about efficiency of the architecture. 40nm process coupled with this efficient architecture works well for Notebooks, so we are launching this first on notebook.

During Computex AMD took the opportunity to showcase the world’s first 40nm DirectX 11 GPU, revealing a couple of videos with their next-generation solutions. How do you comment on that?

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Microsoft is offering users a chance to win a free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate as well as a Windows 7 T-shirt. Stephen L Rose, Sr community manager, Windows IT Pro Client, revealed that all that users needed to do was to fill out a short survey. The Redmond company has already put
up the IT Pro Internet Habits – IT Pro Internet Browsing Survey, which can be accessed through this link. As the label of the survey indicates, the software giant aims to receive feedback on the browsing habits of respondents.

After answering the seven simple questions, users will be granted a chance to win a free Ultimate SKU of Windows 7 and a T-shirt to go along with it. Microsoft has not indicated any sort of participation limitations at this point in time. Moreover, users who want to take the survey will need to fill in their email address and their country of residence, suggesting that the initiative is valid worldwide.

Essentially the survey is designed to provide Microsoft with an insight on the number of computers participants use, their preferred browser, as well on how they manage anonymous Internet browsing, and the deletion of cache and history data.

Microsoft is gearing up to make Windows 7 available to the public on October 22, 2009. The Redmond company confirmed the general availability deadline officially, and indicated that Windows 7, just as Windows Vista, would be launched globally. Ahead of GA, the software giant is preparing to wrap up the next iteration of the Windows client come next month. Windows 7 will be released to manufacturing in the second half of July 2009. However, Microsoft has already started planning details of the Windows 7 launch with its partners, both from the retail and the OEM channels.

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TT... What's the first thing that comes to mind when seeing these two letters put together? I don't know about you, but in our case, it's without a doubt the famous sports car from Audi, a vehicle most of us have coveted since it first appeared on the market.

The truth of the matter is that the Audi TT is not the only TT out there. And we're not talking about some other car developed by a competitor of the German company, but about something completely different, namely the Vaio TT notebook, one of the most ultra-portable Vaio systems to ever come out of Sony's design labs.

Launched back in the second half of 2008, Sony's Vaio TT has impressed everyone right from the start, due to its minute size (almost as small as some of the larger netbooks currently available on the market), its low weight, its very good level of performance, and, last, but certainly not least, its looks.

In fact, the TT carries on the legacy of stylish notebooks that's common throughout the entire Vaio family portable computing systems, but at the same time manages to keep the whole form factor at a very compact level. However, it does so at a very steep price point, which makes it a suitable solution especially for those people for whom money's not exactly a problem.
The Vaio TT is just the thing to use for working while on the go, but also provides very interesting multimedia playback options, probably the most important being that it's the smallest notebook to incorporate a Blu-ray optical drive, which, coupled with the fact that it also incorporates an HDMI interface, makes it the world's smallest high-definition capable player.

These are just a few introductory words, and it's now about time to start our tour of this very impressive, yet fairly inaccessible device.

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HP is set to debut a new version of its ultra-thin, lightweight Pavilion dv2 laptop, featuring an updated dual-core Athlon Neo processor from Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices. The new laptop will allow HP and AMD to better compete in the growing market for ultrathin, ultraportable computer systems, where Intel is also looking

to increase its market share with the help of its CULV platform. Following next week's release of the dual-core Neo processors, AMD is expected to announce the debut of its new 'Congo' low-power silicon later this year.

Intel has been gaining a significant ground in the ultraportable PC market segment, with the chip maker actively promoting its CULV platform. Since its release, a number of system builders have rushed to adopt it, providing consumers with a few interesting designs, such as MSI's X-Slim series and Acer's Timeline family. However, AMD is also on the game of ultraportable, ultrathin laptops, with the launch of its Athlon Neo processors earlier this year.

Back when it was released, the Althon Neo-powered Pavilion dv2 was seen as the next step from netbooks, designed for users looking for an ultraportable PC that could deliver the technical specifications of a fully fledged laptop. Such was the case with the first dv2 laptop from HP, which boasted a 12-inch display, ran on Microsoft's Windows Vista and provided users with ATI graphics, a 320GB hard drive and 4GB of memory. This was a significant upgrade from all those low-power Atom-based systems that were shipped with Windows XP.

The updated version of HP's Pavilion dv2 is expected to provide an increased performance, thanks to the adoption of a dual-core Athlon Neo chip. This new system will be followed by the official release of AMD's anticipated 'Congo' platform, which will integrate the HD3200 graphics chip, another feature that is to raise performance.

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Cyberlink, a leading provider of multimedia software applications for computer systems, has just announced that it has been successfully collaborating with AMD to optimize their multimedia solutions for the ATI Stream technology. The partnership between the two companies will enable Cyberlink applications to take full advantage of the performance delivered by AMD's Radeon GPUs. In addition, Cyberlink has also announced that it has worked with NVIDIA to showcase CUDA-optimized solutions at this year's Computex show in Taipei, Taiwan.

“As a leading developer of many of the most popular consumer photo and video applications, CyberLink consistently looks for new ways to improve the user experience and is employing ATIStream technology to deliver great results faster than ever before,” said Godfrey Cheng, director of technical marketing for graphics products at AMD. “CyberLink’s engineers have successfully taken advantage of our advanced graphics products as well as ATI Stream technology to significantly speed up video conversion, editing, playback and transfer for consumers.”

As part of the collaboration between Cyberlink and AMD, computer users attending this year’s Computex show in Taiwan, will be able to set their eyes on GPU-optimized multimedia applications. Cyberlink's PowerDirector and MediaShow Espresso will provide users with an enhanced visual experience, thanks to the optimization with the computer's GPU. The same goes for NVIDIA's CUDA-enabled GPUs, which will also increase performance of the PowerDVD 9, Power Director and MediaShow Espresso.

“CyberLink has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to GPU computing by utilizing NVIDIA CUDA technology in their portfolio of multimedia solutions,” said Michael Steele, general manager of Visual Consumer Solutions at NVIDIA. “The maturity and flexibility of the CUDA architecture is what has enabled CyberLink to deliver a wide range of compelling features on NVIDIA GPUs first. We anticipate many more innovative developments to come.”

Optimized for NVIDIA's CUDA and ATI Stream technologies, Cyberlink's multimedia applications will be showcased during Computex, providing attendees with an insight into what GPU-optimization can deliver.

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The group responsible for the developing, managing and driving adoption of the Serial ATA specifications has officially announced the specs of the next-generation SATA Revision 3.0 interface, which will eventually replace today's standard SATA 2.0 technology. As mentioned in previous reports, the new SATA interface further boosts the connectivity speed of today's hard disk drives, solid drives, optical drives and tape drives, by doubling the speed of SATA 2 devices. In addition to the 6Gb/s link enabled by the new interface, SATA 3 also provides users with a couple of new features, specifically meant to improve the connection between today's storage devices.

“As speed becomes critical to today’s storage, the SATA Revision 3.0 specification doubles the maximum transfer speed enabled by technology, paving the way for a new generation of faster SATAproducts,” said Knut Grimsrud, SATA-IO president. “SATA-IO members will be able to design for their customers products with the speed they crave, without compromising the quality and performance they’ve come to expect from SATA technology.”

Following the official announcement from SATA-IO, several companies are likely to announce their latest storage solutions, featuring the newly-announced specifications. In addition, with Computex 2009 just days away from debut, by this time next week, we might also see a number of demonstrations of the next-generation storage interface. Among some of the features that have been enabled with the new SATA 3.0 interface, the group has highlighted the following:

- A new Native Command Queuing (NCQ) streaming command to enable isochronous data transfers for bandwidth-hungry audio and video applications

- An NCQ Management feature that helps optimize performance by enabling host processing and management of outstanding NCQ commands

- Improved power management capabilities

- A small Low Insertion Force (LIF) connector for more compact 1.8-inch storage devices

- A connector designed to accommodate 7mm optical disk drives for thinner and lighter notebooks

- Alignment with the INCITS ATA8-ACS standard

We should also mention that SATA 3 is backwards compatible with current SATA 2 devices, which means users will not be required to upgrade in order to enjoy the upcoming wave of SATA 3-based devices.

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