This is something we’d thought would happen eventually, but not this soon. eCinema Systems announced that they’ve developed an LCD that surpasses CRT display quality, and is planning to launch it it by Q4 of this year.

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Source: Gizmodo via Flexbeta

Laptop prices have hit rock bottom in Australia with manufacturers pitching some branded models as low as $800 in a bid to win over new customers.

Plummeting prices and the desire for increased mobility are helping to tempt not only first-time computer buyers but also more seasoned customers looking to upgrade desktops or invest in a second machine, say retailers.

One of the cheapest laptops currently on the market is an Acer Aspire notebook priced in some outlets at around $890 with an additional $100 cashback from the manufacturer thrown in.

According to researcher IDC, competition in the low-cost sector of the laptop market is “furious” with the likes of Toshiba, HP and Dell all diving into Acer’s wake with some of lowest priced machines ever.

Andy Woo, PC analyst, at Gartner said laptop prices first began to slide below $1000 mid last year. “This is the first time we actually saw a notebook for around $900 to $950. Since then prices have dropped another 10 per cent,” he said.

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Today, Phillips has announced a new Blu-ray optical drive and media, providing up to 50GB of storage on a single disc. This is a considerable amount more than current dual-layer DVDs that can fit up to 8.5GB.

The two speed “triple writer” drive is also capable of burning DVDs and CDs, so only one drive is necessary in a machine. The drive will be shipping in August, while writable media (BD-R) will be available from July. Re-writable media, or BD-RE, will be available around September.

Initial media will only be single layer and will fit up to 25GB, compared to the 50GB of the dual layer discs, which won’t be available until Christmas. At 1x speed, it will take roughly 135 minutes to burn 25GB, or close to 70 minutes when at 2x.

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Source: Trusted Reviews via Neowin

So, maybe you weren’t quite ready to set you lap on fire with that JoyTech LCD portable Xbox 360 setup — we understand. Might we recommend a slightly more portable way to get your old school Xbox out and about? Hacker extraordinare “Dave” has managed to squeeze that beast into a custom case, along with a battery, screen, and front mounted controls. We can’t say we’ve discovered our new commuting companion, but for sheer leet-ocity, this really takes the cake. We aren’t spying a drive bay anywhere on here, so we’re guessing this is one those modded Xboxen all the kids are talking about these days. There’s even an Ethernet jack for subway LAN parties and other frivolities. Has Ben Heckendorn met his match?

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Source: Engadget via Flexbeta

Though it was designed as the heart of the upcoming Sony PlayStation3 game console, the STI Cell processor has created quite a stir in the computational science community, where the processor’s potential as a building block for high performance computers has been widely discussed and speculated upon.

To evaluate Cell’s potential, computer scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory evaluated the processor’s performance in running several scientific application kernels, then compared this performance against other processor architectures. The results of the group’s evaluation were presented in a paper at the ACM International Conference on Computing Frontiers, held May 2-6, 2006, in Ischia, Italy.

“Overall results demonstrate the tremendous potential of the Cell architecture for scientific computations in terms of both raw performance and power efficiency,” the authors wrote. While their current analysis uses hand-optimized code on a set of small scientific kernels, the results are striking. On average, Cell is eight times faster and at least eight times more power efficient than current Opteron and Itanium processors, despite the fact that Cell’s peak double precision performance is fourteen times slower than its peak single precision performance.

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Source: HPC Wire via ieXbeta

Old IT timer Silicon Graphics has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a move that will hurt Intel. SGI is a major Itanium customer.

The sad news comes after the firm lost both its CFO, its COO and its CEO earlier this year. In November last year, its shares were suspended on the New York Stock Exchange.

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Source: The Inquirer via Wall Street Journal

Intel plans to unveil a single brand name for a new generation of chips for laptop PCs and desktop machines, calling them the Core 2 Duo.

The company is counting on the chips, which are based on a new design, to regain market share lost to several high-performing chips made by competitor Advanced Micro Devices. Intel’s new architecture, dubbed “Core,” delivers two processors on a single chip, driving better performance while consuming less power.

Core 2 Duo will phase out the Pentium 4 brand for desktop processors and the Core Duo for laptop chips. The older brands were based on two different designs. The chips, code-named Conroe for desktops and Merom for laptops, are scheduled to start shipping in the third quarter.

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Source: SMH

We have come to light of some information - Microsoft “Origami” is a new device of which will ribal the Sony PSP, the iPod and other devices. It will be a handheld device of which can be physically manipulated to take different shapes and forms (nothing out of Star Trek, just folding a few times… we think) and will be able to play games, play music, connect wirelessly via Wireless Protocol and possibly Bluetooth.

Not sure about the operating system - we’ve seen some images running Windows XP, although the edition is unknown, probably Tablet PC Edition. However with Vista on the looms, I’m sure we can see that being supplied with the “Origami” device.

UPDATE: Just recieved some more information which could be very useful. Because transistors nowadays are producing faster and faster computers, the limit is around 4Ghz before they get so hot they just won’t work. However, a new transistor is being produced and Microsoft may well be using this new chip to create a new processor within their “Origami” device, to enable really fast computing on really small devices.Microsoft may not be making the “Origami” device itself, they may just be making the operating system that runs on it. However, some interesting *unconfirmed* information states that Microsoft could be working with manufacturers such as HP, DT Research, NEC, DuraTab and/or Assistive Technology Inc. Now we have yet to confirm this, but these may well be the companies which go towards making the final Microsoft “Origami” device!

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Source: MSBLOG via ieXbeta

Seagate Technology today announced the availability of its latest NL35 Series SATA disc drives to the worldwide distribution channel. With a half-terabyte (500GBs) of capacity, the latest NL35 Series SATA disc drive provides the bulk storage necessary for cost-effective nearline RAID storage in the enterprise. The NL35 Series SATA drives are optimized for tasks such as data management, backup/recovery and fixed content storage.

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Source: Seagate via Flexbeta

Sony has developped a new phone… or mouse… They have developped a mouse, that can be used as a phone for programs like Skype. The idea sounds interesting, though, how would you accept a call with your mouse, if you’re calling? Or how can you make a call while you’re mousing?

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Source: Akihabara News via Flexbeta