castledoom.com

[JuntaJoe]

Intel unveils new chips, slashes prices

Intel Corp. launched its biggest product revamp in six years Thursday, unveiling 10 microprocessors that are expected to help the world's largest chip maker retake ground lost to smaller competitor Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

The Core 2 Duo microprocessors, which are being rolled out gradually over the next month, are Intel's first desktop and mobile chips to feature a blueprint designed to deliver significantly better performance while requiring less power and kicking off less heat.

Also Thursday, Intel slashed prices as much as 61 percent on some of its older chips — a move likely to put more pressure on AMD and result in lower prices for consumers.

Over the past year, Santa Clara-based Intel has lost about 5 percentage points of market share to rival AMD, thanks to a raft of products that many reviewers have said were faster and less expensive to run than Pentium 4 processors, which Intel rolled out in 2000.

Intel's latest design, which delivers as much as 40 percent better performance while consuming as much as 40 percent fewer watts than the previous generation, represents a potent weapon as it tries to close an advantage that AMD has enjoyed for three years.

"The days when AMD could just kick Intel around like it was a piece of wet newspaper are gone," said analyst Nathan Brookwood of the research firm Insight 64. "It is really a dramatic shift in terms of their competitive position, and not a minute too soon."

Intel CEO Paul Otellini acknowledged that the company's old design — or microarchitecture — struggled to compete against AMD's offerings. He vowed that Intel would develop new designs more frequently than it has in the past.

"As it gets long in the tooth, you see diminishing returns," Otellini said in an interview Thursday. "That's why it was essential to move to a new microarchitecture."

But AMD executives said they weren't impressed.

"AMD is now quite accustomed to Intel reacting and attempting to follow our lead," AMD Vice President Patrick Moorhead wrote in an e-mail Thursday afternoon.

Intel, which has already begun shipping the new processors, said the new Core 2 Duo chips will be available from PC makers over the next month. PCs carrying Intel's Core 2 Extreme, a high-end model aimed at computer gamers and enthusiasts, are already being sold. Desktop systems with the Core 2 Duo will be available in about two weeks, while mobile machines carrying the new chip will start selling in about a month.

Prices for desktop processors range from $183 at the low-end to $999 for the top-of-the-line model, when purchased in volume. Intel did not provide prices for its mobile chips.

The chips, which act as the electronic brain in a computer, are built using a state-of-the-art manufacturing process in which the average circuit feature has been shrunk to about 65 nanometers — small enough so that 100 transistors will fit into a single human blood cell. There are about 291 million transistors in each processor.

Shrinking the circuitry allows Intel to cram more transistors onto the same size of silicon, in much the same way that condensing a letter font allows more words to be printed on a piece of paper. The smaller size also allows Intel to put two computing engines on a single chip.

Both Intel and AMD are racing to deliver more power-efficient chips as energy bills for maintaining large numbers of computers and keeping them cool have emerged as one of the top costs in running many businesses.

Intel's price cuts also will help the chip maker clear out inventory of older chips.

The new price of a Pentium 4 desktop chip is now $84, down from $218 just last month. Intel cut prices for the Pentium D desktop chip up to 40 percent. The price for the most expensive Pentium D was slashed to $316 from $530 in June.

In the most recent quarter, Intel profit plunged 57 percent to $885 million, and sales slumped 13 percent to $8 billion — the company's lowest quarterly profit and revenue since 2004.

Shares of Intel lost 3 cents to close at $17.47 in Thursday trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. AMD shares lost 19 cents, to $18.06, on the New York Stock Exchange.

___

On the Net:

http://www.intel.com

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press.

[s_stabeler]

so they can fit a chip into roughly the size of 3 blood cells? no wonder I can't fid it in my current computer.

[JuntaJoe]

RingCube software squeezes PC onto iPod

Mobile computing just got more portable. Making even the latest pocketbook-sized ultra-mobile personal computers look more like lumbering giants, RingCube Technologies Inc. unveiled software that can virtually squeeze a PC onto an iPod, USB keychain drive, cell phone or any gizmo with digital storage space.

RingCube's MojoPac software mirrors a computer's personal settings, programs and data on a storage device. Then, when it's connected to any computer running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP operating system, the virtual desktop will run in a window of the underlying PC.

"You're taking your digital soul with you on any portable storage device," said Shan Appajodu, chief executive and co-founder of RingCube.

A user could toggle between the two computing environments. The company contends that everything you do with your MojoPac PC will remain private: the underlying host PC won't retain any of the files or cache copies of what you did on MojoPac, the company said.

The software can be downloaded and tested at no cost for 30 days. If bought within a month of the product's release, it will cost $29.99 with up to three additional licenses for $14.99 each. After the introductory period, the price will jump to $49.99, with up to three extra licenses costing $24.99 each.

MojoPac will be shown off at the DEMOfall 2006 conference, an elite showcase of emerging technologies being held this week in San Diego.

"I lug my laptop around with me everywhere and the idea that I could bring my work environment around with me on a USB key is really attractive," said DEMO producer Chris Shipley.

The software works by creating a virtual operating system that runs the programs users load onto the storage device. RingCube says MojoPac supports any off-the-shelf applications, including PC video games and applications such as Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Office.

The idea is to transform any computer found at Internet cafes, dorm rooms, libraries or business offices into your personal computer, said Appajodu, who started developing the product more than two years ago.

Mountain View-based RingCube also hopes to introduce a prepackaged version of MojoPac such as on a keychain drive as a low cost computing alternative in developing nations, where many can't afford their own computers. Many people in those areas can't afford personal computers but have access to Internet kiosks.

MojoPac is available as a software download for $49.99 at http://www.mojopac.com.

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press.

[JuntaJoe]

Intel plans quad-core chip in late 2006

Intel Corp. plans to begin shipping microprocessors that have four computing engines on a single chip — products that analysts say will help it win back market share from rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

The first chip, the Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor, will be available in November. Intel says it will deliver a 70 percent performance improvement over Intel's current chips, which have one or two computing cores. The new chip is aimed at gamers, programmers and other people with heavy-duty computing needs.

For general consumers, Intel will ship a quad-core chip starting in the first quarter of 2007. For businesses, Intel will begin shipping four-core server chips later this year. A low-energy, quad chip for servers will be launched early next year, the company said Tuesday.

Offering high performance while maintaining energy efficiency is the name of the game in chip industry, CEO Paul Otellini said at the Intel Developer Forum.

"The industry is going through the most profound shift in decades, moving to an era where performance and energy efficiency are critical in all market segments and all aspects of computing," he said. "The solution begins with the transistor and extends to the chip and platform levels."

Otellini said the Santa Clara-based company's chips would deliver a 300 percent improvement in performance per watt over the next four years.

The new products give Intel — the world's largest chip maker — the opportunity to reverse sinking profits and regain market share stolen by AMD. Earlier this month, Intel announced it would cut 10 percent of its staff, or 10,500 jobs positions, to save $3 billion per year by 2008.

Analysts have criticized Intel for reacting too slowly after AMD's 2003 launch of the Opteron and Athlon 64 chips for servers and desktop PCs.

AMD will introduce a particularly efficient and fast quad-core chip for high-performance servers in mid-2007, said spokesman John Taylor.

"Our strategy is consistent — it's a customer-focused strategy that makes the transition as easy and benefit-rich for the customer as possible," Taylor said.

But it's unclear whether AMD's offering will make up for Intel's early lead, said IDC analyst Bob O'Donnell.

"Intel moved up this announcement specifically as an offensive blow against AMD, and it gives Intel a good six- to nine-month lead," O'Donnell said. "They're both taking this battle seriously. There's no question AMD will react — it's just a matter of when."

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press.

[JuntaJoe]

Moore's Law seen extended in chip breakthrough

Intel Corp. and IBM have announced one of the biggest advances in transistors in four decades, overcoming a frustrating obstacle by ensuring microchips can get even smaller and more powerful.

The breakthrough, achieved via separate research efforts and announced on Friday, involves using an exotic new material to make transistors -- the tiny switches that are the building blocks of microchips.

The technology involves a layer of material that regulates the flow of electricity through transistors.

"At the transistor level, we haven't changed the basic materials since the 1960s. So it's a real big breakthrough," said Dan Hutcheson, head of VLSI Research, an industry consultancy.

"Moore's Law was coming to a grinding halt," he added, referring to the industry maxim laid down by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a chip doubles roughly every two years.

The result of Moore's Law has been smaller and faster chips and their spread into a wide array of consumer products that now account for the bulk of the industry's $250 billion in annual sales.

The latest breakthrough means Intel, IBM and others can proceed with technology roadmaps that call for the next generation of chips to be made with circuitry as small as 45 nanometers, about 1/2000th the width of a human hair.

Intel said it will use the technology, based on a silvery metal called hafnium, in new processors coming out later this year that the company hopes will give it a leg up on chips from rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

"We do expect that those products will deliver higher performance levels than existing products," said Steve Smith, vice president of Intel's digital enterprise group operations. "What we're seeing is excellent double-digit performance gains on media applications."

International Business Machines Corp. expects its technique to debut next year in chips made by its partners, which include AMD and Japan's Toshiba Corp.

Researchers are optimistic the new technology can be used at least through two more technology generations out, when circuitry will be just 22 nanometers.

"We've been doing this for 40 years and we've got to the point where some of these layers you have to make smaller wouldn't scale anymore," said IBM Chief Technologist Bernie Meyerson.

"We are getting down to a stage of technology where people have wondered if you could really ever go there, and we have definitely shown a roadmap down to these unbelievably tiny dimensions," Meyerson said.

The problem with the previous technology is that the layer of silicon-based material is now just 5 atoms thick, meaning lots of electricity leaks out, resulting in wasted power and shorter battery life.

"It's like running two faucets when you only need one. You're actually wasting more water than you're actually using," said Jim McGregor, an analyst with technology market research firm In-Stat.

The benefits of the new technique can be tapped in a number of ways. Transistors can be made smaller, potentially doubling the total number in a given area, their speed can be increased by more than 20 percent, or power leakage can be cut by 80 percent or more.

"Consumers are going toward mobility and power-sensitive solutions. We need to not only make things smaller and more efficient but also use less power," McGregor said.

There are plenty of challenges in keeping Moore's Law on track. For instance, it is becoming harder to make beams of light narrow enough to etch circuitry on chips.

"But this takes out what has been considered the biggest number one roadblock," VLSI's Hutcheson said.

Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited.

[Brf]

JuntaJoe wrote: The technology involves a layer of material that regulates the flow of electricity through transistors.

That sounds like a reporter's misinterpretation...

Actually, a transistor regulates the flow of electricity with a layer of material... so the reporter had it backward.

A transistor is made of silcon or, originally, germanium, which is contaminated (doped) with other elements. The middle layer is doped with a different element than the top and bottom, so it blocks the electricity from flowing through, unless a current is applied to that middle layer.

The problem they are seeing, is that the middle layer is becoming too thin to effectively block anymore...

The new transistors are using hafnium, rather than silicon for the top and bottom layers with a metal middle layer....

This article was written in November 2003, so the technology has been around for 3 years. The trick was to create the manufacturing techniques for it, rather than todays silicon processes.

[JuntaJoe]

You are quite right about the semi-conductor process, Brf.

But I had not heard about the hafnium metal layer before.

I also noted the wiki page on hafnium doesn't talk about this process either:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafnium

[JuntaJoe]

Famed `$100 laptop' now $188

The vaunted "$100 laptop" that Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers dreamed up for international schoolchildren is becoming a slightly more distant concept.

Leaders of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child that was spun out of MIT acknowledged Friday that the devices are now slated to cost $188 when mass production begins this fall. The last price the nonprofit announced was $176; it described $100 as a long-term goal.

Spokesman George Snell blamed the increase on a variety of factors, including currency fluctuations and rising costs of such components as nickel and silicon. He said the project was committed to keeping the price from rising above $190.

While less than $200 for an innovative, wireless-enabled, hand-powered laptop is a relative bargain, a price nearly twice what the project's memorable nickname promised could make it harder for One Laptop Per Child to sign up international governments as customers. Those governments are expected to give the computers to children for them to keep and tinker with, which the project's founders believe will cause critical thinking and creativity to blossom.

"Where does it end? It started out at $130, then it was $148, then it was $176, now it's $188 — what's next? $200?" said Wayan Vota, the former director of the Geekcorps international tech-development organization and current editor of the OLPCNews blog. "You have these governments who were looking at this original, fanciful $100-per-child figure, now we're going up towards or maybe past $200."

One Laptop Per Child says it has commitments for at least 3 million of its rugged "XO" computers, though it won't disclose which countries are first in line. Among the nations that have shown interest are Brazil, Libya, Thailand and Uruguay.

The "XO" machines feature an open-source interface designed to be intuitive for children; a sunlight-readable display; very low power consumption; built-in wireless networking; and a pull cord for recharging by hand. The laptops are being made by Taiwan's Quanta Computer Inc., the world's leading manufacturer of portable computers.

___

On the Net:

http://www.laptop.org

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.

[JuntaJoe]

Hitachi: Hard drives are getting better

Multimedia stockpilers need not worry about laptops, digital video recorders or portable music players hitting a storage capacity ceiling any time soon.

Hitachi Ltd. says its researchers have successfully shrunken a key component in hard drives to a nanoscale that will pave the way for quadrupling today's storage limits to 4 terabytes for desktop computers and 1 terabyte on laptops in 2011.

A terabyte can hold the text of roughly 1 million books, 250 hours of high-definition video, or a quarter million songs.

"It means the industry is making good progress to advance the capacity of disk drives and move to smaller form factors," said John Rydning, an analyst at market research firm IDC.

The feat, which Hitachi plans to present Monday at the Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Conference in Tokyo, revisits a technology known as giant magnetoresistance, or GMR, that was the basis of the work of two European scientists who won the Nobel Prize in physics last week.

A hard drive has a metal disk inside that spins as an arm with an electromagnetic head at its tip hovers over it. The head reads bits of data by registering the magnetic bearing of the particles on the disk.

Capacities of hard drives have grown as researchers have crammed more bits of data closer together while also making the heads sensitive enough to read the data. The industry looks to new technologies every time physical limitations kick in, and GMR — which allows for extremely thin layers of alternating metals to detect weak changes in magnetism — was one of the breakthroughs that led to the fastest growth rate in the early 2000s, allowing hard drives to double in capacity every year.

But GMR-based heads maxed out, and the industry replaced the technology in recent years with an entirely different kind of head. Yet researchers are predicting that technology will soon run into capacity problems, and now GMR is making a comeback as the next-generation successor.

"We changed the direction of the current and adjusted the materials to get good properties," said John Best, chief technologist for Hitachi's data-storage unit.

By doing so, Hitachi said it has created the world's smallest disk drive heads in the 30-nanometer to 50-nanometer range, or about 2,000 times smaller than the width of an average human hair.

Other hard drive companies are working on similar technology as well, Rydning said. He predicted the entire disk drive industry will begin migrating to this new type of GMR-based technology in 2009.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.

[JuntaJoe]

Intel launching new chip lineup

Intel Corp. plans to roll out its newest generation of processors Monday, flexing its manufacturing muscle with a sophisticated new process that crams up to 40 percent more transistors onto the company's chips.

The world's largest semiconductor company expects to start shipping 16 new microprocessors — which also boast inventive new materials to stanch electricity loss — for use in servers and high-end gaming PCs .

The most complex chips being launched Monday have 820 million transistors, compared with the 582 million transistors on the same chips built using the current standard technology. Intel's first chips, introduced in the early 1970s, had just 2,300 transistors.

Advances in chip technology occur as smaller and smaller lines are etched onto the chips. Intel's new chips shrink the width of those lines to an average of 45 nanometers, or 45 billionths of a meter, compared to 65 nanometers on the previous generation of chips .

The smaller circuitry allows Intel to squeeze more transistors — the building blocks of computer chips — onto the same slice of silicon. That accelerates performance and drives down manufacturing costs.

The transistors on the new chips are so small that more than 30 million of them can fit onto the head of a pin. Performance zooms ahead with smaller transistors because more of them are available, they twitch faster to process data and less energy is required to power them.

Perhaps more importantly, the transistors on the Santa Clara-based company's new chips are built with new materials that help solve the critical problem of electricity loss as the circuitry gets smaller and smaller.

As electricity escapes from the chip, more power is needed to fuel its operations, leading to shorter battery life in laptop computers or higher electricity costs to run the machines.

"This is more than just a new process shrink," Tom Kilroy, general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, said. "Forty-five nanometers is wonderful and we get an uplift, but it really is the reinvention of the transistor."

Intel, which plans to spend up to $8 billion on upgrading or building factories for the 45-nanometer chips, is at least six months ahead of smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in moving to the new technology.

Intel plans to launch new chips designed for mainstream desktop and laptop computers in the first quarter of 2008. Sunnyvale-based AMD, which partners with IBM Corp. on chip-making technology, is targeting mid-2008 to start selling its 45-nanometer chips.

AMD has long maintained that its chips have certain design advantages that keep them competitive with Intel's best offerings. One of those features is an integrated memory controller, which AMD has long championed.

Intel only said recently it would begin incorporating the controllers into future generations of chips.

"When you get myopic on the focus on the nanometers in the CPU, you can lose focus on the entire solution," said AMD spokesman John Taylor.

Intel's launch Monday includes server chips with frequencies of 2 gigahertz to 3.20 gigahertz for the quad-core models, which have four processing engines. The clock speed for dual-core models, which have two processing engines, goes up to 3.40 gigahertz. The measurements refer to the chips' processing cycles, or how fast they can process information.

The server chips will sell for $177 to $1279 in quantities of 1,000. The gaming chip will cost $999 in quantities of 1,000. Intel said all the processors would be available within 45 days.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.

[JuntaJoe]

Review: Eee laptop PC shreds the rules

Taiwanese computer parts maker Asus obviously didn't get the memo.

Didn't Asus know notebook computers need hard drives? Or that they're supposed to run Windows — and the pre-loaded software must bloat the boot-up process to the length of a long weekend? Don't they know you don't just go selling laptops for less than $750 — let alone $400 — unless the hardware has been aged like whisky?

Asustek Computers Inc. went ahead and broke the rules with the Eee PC. And we should all be thankful.

A scrappy, aggressively priced two-pound notebook with a surprisingly broad set of features, Eee is a no-brainer purchase for tech-savvy travelers who want to downsize their luggage at low cost. It also makes a great gift, at least as practical as Apple Inc.'s iPhone and about the same price.

In the month I've owned an Eee, I've used it to watch movies on an airplane, read my favorite blogs and news articles — archived automatically — and update my online calendar while on the road. Its quick boot-up has made it perfect for writing quick e-mails (and this review) whenever I had a moment of inspiration.

I'm not tossing my larger notebook computer, which I'll continue to use for editing photos and for other tasks that feel constrained on the Eee PC's tiny, 5-inch screen. But it's hard not to be impressed with a full-service laptop light enough to be carried along with sunscreen and a magazine in a flimsy plastic bag, as I did during a recent trip to Cancun.

As it refines the software and instructions, Asus — better known as the world's largest maker of computer motherboards — could garner a following among mainstream computer users who right now might be puzzled by some of the eccentricities of Linux.

The $400, seven-inch Eee PC is a new entrant in a fast-growing market for ultra-portable PCs. All such computers, including the Eee, require sacrifices. Its keys may seem painfully small. For people used to a desktop or a standard notebook, its screen makes you feel like you've just moved from a McMansion into a studio apartment. (Tricks for maximizing screen real estate when Web surfing can be found on the helpful user forum, Eeeuser.com.)

Unencumbered by Windows, the Eee boots up so quickly I didn't bother counting the seconds. Its Wi-Fi chip links with the Web in a flash, and its webcam — a feature missing from many laptops triple the price — turns it into a video messaging device with the help of eBay Inc.'s Skype, which comes pre-loaded. There are USB ports for peripherals, a port to connect to a monitor, and — most essential — a flash memory slot to expand its meager storage. Battery life is advertised at 3.5 hours.

The Eee's custom version of the Linux operating system has a simple user interface that takes some getting used to. It organizes the software by tabs — Internet, Work, Learn and Play — but many users on the Eee forum dislike its look. An upgrade to a more familiar, Windows-like interface is available in "advanced" mode, which can be activated with a few minutes of careful programming. (But you'll do that at your peril. On my second day, a badly written command crashed my system. I had to reinstall the original software.)

The Firefox Web browser, Adobe Acrobat Reader and OpenOffice — the open-source equivalent to Microsoft Corp.'s Office — come pre-installed, as do a music player, a video recorder and some addictive games. Google Docs — an online document suite for storing files remotely and sharing them — is also configured.

Links to Yahoo Mail, Gmail and other e-mail programs are already on the desktop. A messaging program called Pidgin worked with AOL Instant Messenger and Google Talk. Skype, the voice and video calling program, also worked well when I called home from the international airport in Hong Kong.

Users willing to learn a few Linux commands can add the Picasa photo sharing program, Google Earth and Audacity, a free audio editing program beloved by bloggers.

The Eee runs quickly, despite a low-power processor. A disk drive made of memory chips is fully functional, but the four gigabytes installed on my model was insufficient for my needs. A memory card I purchased separately for around $30 doubled the space. Its software package leverages recent advancements in open source and online software. It may be hard to believe, but you won't miss Microsoft Word, or Windows, for long.

While much of the computing world was focused on Windows Vista (or spending hours trying to navigate its upgrade process), big software companies were releasing new and upgraded versions of familiar software packages for Linux.

The Eee can be retrained to run Windows. But it can feel like a major commitment. Asus's exhaustive instructions include a 12-step installation, a four-step "optimizing" process and another 25 steps to get the operating system to play nice with the Eee. (I'm thinking of giving my friends copies of one of the instructions, "Deleting unnecessary Windows components.")

The Eee is not easy to find. At a large Manhattan computer store in November, a clerk told me the store was out of stock. And why wouldn't he? If a $400 PC sat next to higher-priced competitors on the shelf, would so many people spend $2,000? I made him check the store's inventory in front of me, and there were more than 40 Eees in stock.

Asus, in fact, may have gotten the memo — and shredded it. Even if this Linux PC doesn't become a mainstream hit, rivals are certainly taking notes.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.

[JuntaJoe]

Report: Toshiba may end HD DVD format

Japanese electronics maker Toshiba might withdraw its HD DVD next-generation video format, Kyodo News agency reported Saturday.

The report cited unidentified individuals from the industry as saying Toshiba Corp. is reviewing its operations, with the timing of the withdrawal to be decided later, depending on U.S. demand for its HD DVD products and other factors.

Calls went unanswered at Toshiba Corp.'s Tokyo office, which was closed for the weekend.

HD DVD has been competing against the Blu-ray technology, backed by Sony Corp., other makers and five major Hollywood movie studios.

Recently the Blu-ray disc format has been gaining market share, while Toshiba has been forced to slash prices to sell its HD DVD machines. A Toshiba pullout would signal the almost certain defeat of HD DVD to Blu-ray.

On Friday, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the largest U.S. retailer, said it will sell only Blu-ray DVDs and hardware and no longer carry HD DVD offerings.

The announcement came five days after Netflix Inc. said it will cease carrying rentals in HD DVD. Several major U.S. retailers have made similar decisions, including Target Corp. and Blockbuster Inc.

Last month, Warner Bros. Entertainment decided to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format, becoming the latest studio to reject HD DVD.

Warner Bros., owned by Time Warner Inc., had been the only remaining Hollywood studio releasing high-definition DVDs in both formats.

Both formats deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound, but they are incompatible with each other, and neither plays on older DVD players.

Only one format has been expected to emerge as the winner, much like VHS trumped Sony's Betamax in the video format battle of the 1980s.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.

[s_stabeler]

meh, Blu-Ray was the technically better one, with higher capacity, so I don't really care much. once movies moved to Blu-Ray-only distribution, HD-DVD was doomed. only fly in the ointment is continued region coding, and that isn't much of a problem, as several players are multi-region.

[JuntaJoe]

Circuitry discovery could lead to beefier memory

For nearly 40 years, scientists have speculated that basic electrical circuits have a natural ability to remember things even when the power is switched off. They just couldn't find it.

Now researchers at Hewlett-Packard Co. have proven them right, with a discovery they hope will lead to memory chips that store more data but consume far less power than those found in today's personal computers and other digital devices.

The newly discovered circuit element — called a memristor — could enable cell phones that can go weeks or longer without a charge, PCs that start up instantly, and laptops that retain your session information long after the battery dies.

It also could challenge flash memory, which is now widely used in portable electronics because of its ability to retain information even when power is off. Chips incorporating the HP discovery would be faster, suck up less power and take up far less space than today's flash.

"It certainly looks promising," said Wolfgang Porod, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Notre Dame and director of the university's Center for Nano Science and Technology. "However, if it's going to be 100 times better or 1,000 times better (than today's flash), it's very hard to say at this point."

Scientists have suspected since the 1970s that along with the three well-known elements of a basic circuit — the resistor, the capacitor and the inductor — a fourth fundamental building block is possible.

The memristor built by HP Labs researchers and reported Thursday in the scientific journal Nature is made with a layer of titanium dioxide sandwiched between two metal electrodes. The researchers discovered that the amount of resistance it exerts depends on how much electric charge had previously passed through it.

That characteristic gives the memristor an innate ability to remember the amount of charge that has flowed through it long after the power to it is turned off. That means the circuit itself can be built with a memory function baked in.

Otherwise, data have to be stored in power-hungry transistors configured for storage. That also takes up valuable real estate on microprocessors or requires separate memory chips.

Some outside researchers, however, said more study is required before the memristor upsets the memory business. The HP Labs team said commercial viability is at least "a few years" away.

"These structures are going to be very small. It's obvious to me one could make very dense memory out of them, but how it could compete against other memory like flash remains to be seen," said Porod, who was not involved in the HP research.

Leon Chua, a professor in the electrical engineering and computer sciences department at the University of California, Berkeley, published a paper in 1971 theorizing that it should be possible to build such a structure.

Over the years, researchers observed behavior that seemed to suggest circuits possessed this ability, but they either dismissed it as a fluke or didn't realize the significance of the observation.

Stan Williams, a senior fellow at HP Labs and one of the four researchers on the Nature paper, said his team was able to identify the behavior and build a structure to harness its power because the effect is more apparent — and gets stronger — as the wiring in the circuits gets smaller and smaller.

Chua, who wrote the first paper on the topic when he was a new professor at Berkeley, is now 71 years old and says he's nearing retirement from the university.

"I never thought I'd live long enough to see this happen," Chua said with a laugh. "I'm thrilled because it's almost like vindication. Something I did is not just in my imagination, it's fundamental."

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.

[s_stabeler]

this is potentially massive. after all, think what it could do for laptops, for one. if this is as good as a hard rive, then it could mean, say, computers built into monitors that aren't PDAs or mobile phones. even if it doesn't, it'll mean RAM that doesn't lose its' data. imagine a power cut, and when it comes back on again, your work appears again.

[JuntaJoe]

It will totally reorganize circuit theory, imo.

It's like when Bell Labs said they invented the transistor.

Look where that led us.

[JuntaJoe]

Those of you who operate XP on an OEM version disc or a pre-loaded version should be warned about this. Unless you go buy a full version then you'll have trouble if you ever choose to reload on your current pc (minor) or buy a new pc and put your XP back on it (major).

If you don't know what you have then I advise you to look fast as speculators will begin snapping up the remainder rapidly and charge very high prices.

Amazon still has a bunch in stock right now, but expect that to change fast.




Microsoft to stop selling Windows XP on Monday

Microsoft Corp. is scheduled to stop selling its Windows XP operating system to retailers and major computer makers Monday, despite protests from a slice of PC users who don't want to be forced into using XP's successor, Vista.

Once computers loaded with XP have been cleared from the inventory of PC makers such as Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., consumers who can't live without the old operating system on their new machine will have to buy Vista Ultimate or Vista Business and then legally "downgrade" to XP.

Microsoft will still allow smaller mom-and-pop PC builder shops to buy XP for resale through the end of January. A version of XP will also remain available for ultra-low-cost PCs such as the Asus Eee PC.

A group of vocal computer users who rallied around a "Save XP" petition posted on the industry news site InfoWorld had been clamoring for Microsoft to keep selling XP until its next operating system, Windows 7, is available. The software maker has said it expects to release Windows 7 sometime in 2009.

Last week, Microsoft said it would provide full technical support for six-year-old Windows XP through 2009, and limited support through 2014.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.

[Brf]

JuntaJoe wrote: Those of you who operate XP on an OEM version disc or a pre-loaded version should be warned about this. Unless you go buy a full version then you'll have trouble if you ever choose to reload on your current pc (minor) or buy a new pc and put your XP back on it (major).

Where did you read that?

[JuntaJoe]

Didn't read it anywhere. It's just common sense. If you plan on a full install or reinstall with full scrub then you need a complete copy.

Many people buy pc with preloaded OS that only comes with a rescue disc or limited OEM disc that only allows an "overlay" reinstall. Then there are some who got it with online download and can never do a reinstall now.

It's less of an issue if you are simply doing a reinstall as much as a new install on a new pc. Those wimpy discs can't do it.

When I got my pc I demanded certified XP disc with factory code. Cost extra too. So I can put it on a new pc if I so choose later.

If you don't own a genuine disc with the factory serial number then pretty much accept your next pc will just be running Vista.

[Brf]

The PCs I have seen are OEM that do not need a registration code. They install-from-scratch with the OEM CD just fine.