Universal Serial Bus 3.0 is just around the cornet, but it does not mean that its brother IEEE 1394 standard (also known as FireWire and iLink) has ceased its development. In fact, this month the 1394 trade association said that it had ratified the 1394-2008 specification, which significantly improves bandwidth of the interconnect.

The 1394-2008 high performance serial bus standard updates and revises all prior 1394 standards dating back to the original 1394-1995 version, and including 1394a, 1394b, 1394c, enhanced UTP, and the 1394 beta plus PHY-Link interface. It also incorporates the complete specifications for S1600 version with 1.6Gb/s bandwidth) and for S3200 version, which provides 3.2Gb/s speed.

ā€œThe consolidated 1394-2008 specification effectively allows one single document to serve all. It provides one consistent document that provides everything a designer or developer needs in order to work with 1394 in any application. We assembled an experienced team of experts from consumer electronics, computer, and semiconductor companies who have worked diligently to complete this task on time,ā€¯ said said Les Baxter, 1394 Trade Association leader and director of Baxter Enterprises, who supervised the process. Read the rest of this entry »

Advanced Micro Devices plans to sell its consumer electronics TV business unit it got with the acquisition of ATI Technologies back in 2006 to Broadcom, an analyst said. Earlier this year AMD wrote down $880 million from its goodwill and intangible assets due to lowering revenues of its ā€œnon-coreā€¯ businesses.

ā€œBroadcom is a likely buyer for some of ATI’s products. We believe that Broadcom is a likely candidate to acquire AMDā€™s consumer TV business for about $250-$375 million as it has a comfort level and history with integrating former ATI products and management,ā€¯ said analyst Doug Freedman of American Technology Research in a note to customers, reports EETimes web-site.

After the management of AMD took over ATI Technologiesā€™ businesses, revenues of the consumer electronics units, which includes chips used inside digital TV-sets as well as chips for mobile phones, dropped nearly 40% year-over-year. Recently AMD implied that it may sell off its ā€œnon-coreā€¯ businesses.

ā€œThe business includes DTV chips that are sold into major name brand digital TVs. We believe Sony and Samsung as well has HiSense (China) are all ATI customers. We also view the handset-based product line as available for sale, however, we are unable to identify a potential buyer given the limited customer base,ā€¯ said Mr. Friedman.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

SanDisk has just launched the new Cruzer Pattern flash memories. Available in 1 GB (gray) and 2 GB (black) capacities, theses new flash memories support U3 technology. This technology allows you to carry the necessary software to work with your files automatically in the drive, so when opening your files in a different computer, you will be able to work with them even if your software of choice isnā€™t installed on that computer. The MSRP for 1 GB model is of USD 9.99 and for 2 GB model is of USD 14.99.

Express yourself with SanDiskā€™s stylish Cruzer Pattern USB Flash Drives. Store all your digital documents, pictures, video clips and MP3 files and take it with you, wherever you go.

The funky design clips onto your clothes or bag and youā€™re ready to go. Let everyone know exactly who you are by showing them your USB Flash Drive. Read the rest of this entry »

London (England) ā€“ A British hacker has lost his appeal against extradition to the United States.Ā  42-year-old Gary McKinnon is accused of wreaking havoc on US military computer systems back in 2001 and 2002 by hacking into systems with a simple dial-up modem and off-the-shelf software.Ā  US prosecutors want to try him in the states and McKinnon, along with his solicitors, have been fighting extradition for several years.Ā  Now it appears time is running out for the unemployed IT administrator as Britainā€™s highest court, the House of Lords, has rejected his appeal.

According to court documents, McKinnon is accused of scanning over 73000 government computers belonging to the Department of Defense, Army, Air Force, Navy and even NASAand actually gained access to 97 computers with his dial-up modem.Ā  During his exploits, he managed to take 2000+ computers offline for 24 hours at the US Army Military District of Washington and a similar hack attempt disabled 300 computers at a New Jersey naval weapons station.Ā  The government estimates that McKinnon caused approximately $900,000 in damage. Read the rest of this entry »

Tokyo (Japan) ā€“ 21 months after the introduction of the Nintendo Wii, the game console is still in short supply and you have to be lucky to find one on the shelves in retail stores. But Nintendoā€™s previously announced increase in Wii production capacity is showing effect: The company sold 5.2 million consoles in the second quarter of this year (fiscal Q1 2009 for the company), compared to only 1.7 million in Q2 of last year.

The Wii console was the main growth driver for the company in the second quarter, lifting earnings by 34% to $996 million. Sales came in at $3.9 billion. Read the rest of this entry »

The main reason for the trend, according to iSuppli’s report, is the drop in manufacturing outsourcing to China by foreign electronic equipment makers.

Chinese demand for locally designed semiconductors is heating up, as chipmakers turn their attention to serving the needs of electronic equipment makers in China, a market research firm said Wednesday.By 2012, $42.1 billion in Chinese-designed semiconductors will be bought for use in China, up 63.8% from $25.8 billion in 2007, iSuppli said. The main reason for the trend is the drop in manufacturing outsourcing to China by foreign electronic equipment makers. Read the rest of this entry »

Dell (Dell) on Wednesday sought to play down a report that it’s developing a digital music player that would take Dell squarely into Apple’s iPod turf, and said it is more focused on how to deliver entertainment services across multiple products.The Wall Street Journal reported that in recent months, the computer maker has been testing a player that could go on sale as early as September. The player would be accompanied by an online download service and related software that Dell hopes will launch the company into a broader range of consumer markets, the newspaper said. Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) researchers are developing a new operating system that’s designed from the ground up to support Internet-based computing and multicore architectures and which could one day replace the company’s storied Windows franchise.The operating system, which currently goes by the development name Midori, is being built to solve problems that are beyond the scope of Windows, a so-called fat OS that was first developed before the Internet came into widespread use and most PCs had only a single processor.

It’s possible that Midori is being designed for use in cloud computing scenarios, in which business applications reside on centralized servers and are accessed through the Web. Microsoft researchers also are building the OS with an eye to achieving better performance on multicore PCs, company documents show. To date, developers have had little success creating software that’s able to fully harness the power of computers that feature two or more cores on a single chip.Microsoft has said little about Midori and isn’t commenting publicly on the project. But company research documents confirm that the project exists and is related to a public project called Singularity — under which Microsoft developers are creating a slimmed down OS for use in the research community. Read the rest of this entry »

The Environmental Protection Agency has launched an initiative to collect monthly energy-consumption data from about 240 data centers over the next year with the aim of creating possible Energy Star specifications for energy-efficient data centers.As part of the new “Energy Star commercial building data center collection initiative,” the facilities are providing to the EPA monthly information about “how much power is going in to the data center, how much is being used, and submetering,” including how much energy is consumed by all non-IT “infrastructure” gear, including air conditioning, uninterruptible power supplies, and lighting, versus the power being used by IT equipment such as servers, storage, network products, and “other ancillary products,” Andrew Fanara, the EPA’s Energy Star program product development team leader, said in an interview with InformationWeek. Read the rest of this entry »

Palo Alto (CA) ā€“ Whether you like it or not, cloud computing is shaping up more and more to become one of the key IT trends of the next decade. Today, cloud computing consists of too many unknown variables and most cloud services available could be considered transitional services at best. HP, Intel and Yahoo are now taking a lead role in this trend and are building a huge cloud computing playground for researchers in the hope that convincing applications will be developed and open questions will be answered. Read the rest of this entry »