AMD buys out ATI, Intel and Nvidia seem to form a strategic alliance; in short these are turbulent times in the world of chip manufacturers. If we are to believe the statements made by several manufacturers, then we are on the threshold of some major changes concerning task applications for the various chips in a PC. Though AMD has gotten a head start with Torrenza, Intel won't be far behind in implementing a similar solution.

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Source: Hardware.Info via Flexbeta

It seems that 2007 will be the year of flash-based drives finally starting to nibble into the market share of the only current logical candidates, magnetic platter-based hard disk drives. With all the advances in NAND field, companies have started to introduce flash disk models of usable capacities for the commercial notebook space, not just industrial ones. Adtron Corporation has just introduced some newcomers to its Flashpak family - 2.5-inch flash disk models in capacities of 32GB, 96GB and 160GB.

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Source: The Inquirer via Flexbeta

After the acquisition of ATI Technologies by Advanced Micro Devices the latter started to force out ATI’s brand-name and emphasize AMD brand for graphics cards. However, there are still many fans of ATI, who are very addicted to this name and who would like to get something related to it. Especially for 500 of such people AMD is selling Radeon X1950 XTX Uber Edition bundles signed by Dave Orton, the former chief executive of ATI.

ATI Radeon X1950 XTX Uber Edition is two Radeon X1950 XTX graphics cards (one of which is a master edition version required for multi-GPU CrossFire mode) with clock-speeds of chip/memory increased to 670MHz/2100MHz from 650MHz/2000MHz on default graphics cards. Each of 500 of such bundles is supplied in a special suit-case equipped with a combination lock. Every Radeon X1950 XTX Uber comes with certificate of authenticity signed by ATI’s former chief executive officer David Orton.

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Source: Xbit Labs via Neowin

Motorola’s first Linux handset for the US market, the RIZR Z6, is also likely to be the first in the industry to run an “open” operating system - Linux, Symbian OS or Windows on a single- rather than dual-processor architecture. This shows that Linux is making significant improvements in its suitability to be an operating system for mobile devices, and could give Motorola a significant headstart in the battle to create low power, low cost smartphones.

It is also significant that Motorola said it had worked closely with Microsoft in the creation of the handset. This was primarily to allow it to sync with PCs running Windows Media, but indicates the gradual softening of Microsoft’s attitude to working proactively with non-Windows platforms, as well as its growing closeness to Motorola.

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Source: The Register via Neowin

Intel says the research prototype chip, which will take five to eight years to bring to market, uses less than 100 watts of power and has teraflop performance.

Intel’s researchers have produced an 80-core chip that uses less energy than a quad-core processor and has teraflop performance capabilities.

Researchers have built the prototype to study how best to make that many cores communicate with each other. They’re also studying new designs for cores and new architectural techniques, according to Manny Vara, a technology strategist with Intel’s R&D labs. The chip is just for research purposes and lacks some necessary functionality at this point, but Vara says Intel will be able to produce a chip with 80 cores in five to eight years.

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Source: InformationWeek

GeForce 8600 and GeForce 8300 are the two series of graphics cards which will fill the void beneath NVIDIA’s already launched 8800 series. Based on the G84 core 8600 Ultra and GT will have 64 and 48 shader processors respectively with cores running at 500MHz and 350MHz. With a 256-bit memory bus and memory speeds at 1400MHz and 1200MHz the cards will replace the 7600 series of today. The launch date for these cards is about the same as for when ATI will launch R600, that is, around CeBIT at the start of March.

Except from the 8600 series Bear Eyes has also published specifications for 8300 GT and 8300 GS (via VR-Zone). These cards will replace the 7300 series of today and is based on the G86, an 80nm core. The number of shader processors has been halved to 32 and 24 respectively, while both cores will work at 500MHz. The GT model will have slightly faster memories though, 1200MHz vs. 1000MHz. With a 128-bit bus and up to 256MB the performance will most likely be reflected by the price.

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Source: Nordic Hardware via Neowin

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Two sparsely-buttoned large, touchscreen phones: the Apple iPhone, and the LG KE850 (which already won the International Forum Design Product Design Award for 2007). Separated at birth, or possible lawsuit number two for Apple? You decide.

Source: Engadget

If you feel the need to have a nuclear reactor in your gaming case, the 2000W ATX Power Supply from Ultra Products should be enough for you. Being unveiled at CES, the 2000W PS is modular, and feeds up to 1800W on the 12V connection alone.

With all that power, you’re going to be able to support quad core, quad GPU cards, or a gigantic RAID system to store all your homemade movies. No word on price, but we’re guessing somewhere around the PlayStation 3’s price tag.

View: Ultra Products Homepage
Source: Gizmodo

Sharp Electronics took the wraps off the largest LCD television: a 108-incher. Sharp realizes, of course, that not very many people will want such a gargantuan TV. Their rebuttal? There is always commercial customers, price drops and those early adopters. It should also be noted that this is yet another blow to plasma televisions: one of their main advantages was sheer size. Not only is this LCD television larger than any plasma one announced (105″), it has a higher resolution than plasmas and a lower power consumption.

“There is no question that LCD is becoming the dominant format in flat panels,” Toshihiko Fujimoto, CEO of Sharp Electronics said. Consequently, Sharp plans to increase its marketing and branding efforts for LCD TVs in 2007 as well as apply price pressure to its closest competitors.

Opened in August 2006, Sharp’s secret weapon is an eighth-generation plant in Kameyama, Japan. The factory processes glass sheets, which measure just more than 7 feet by 8 feet. Monthly production will go up to 30,000 sheets of glass in January 2007 and should be at 90,000 in March 2008. A single sheet is equivalent to six 52-inch LCDs. Thanks to the plant, Sharp has four separate lines of LCD televisions that differ in technical specifications. For example, Sharp plans to release (later in 2007) televisions with a refresh rate of 120Hz (as opposed to 60Hz) - this is expected to largely increase picture quality.

Source: C|Net

ASUS has introduced the XG Station: a dedicated external graphics card. Laptop users rejoice; high end graphics performance is availabe, without losing the portability of a laptop. The XG Station is powered by a power brick that plugs directly into the adaptor. An integrated LCD screen can display information such as frame rate, fan speed, GPU temperature and more while the included control knob can change various settings of the XG Station such as the core and memory clocks.

Currently, the XG Station only connects to any notebook’s ExpressCard slot but will eventually work with PCIe ExpressCard interfaces installed in a desktop PC. The station can be equipped with any PCI Express x16 based graphics card: AMD, NVIDIA or even Matrox. ASUS chose the first XG Station to contain an NVIDIA 7900GS powered graphics card. Pricing is presently unknown but expect ASUS to release the XG Station in Q2 2007.

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Source: DailyTech