19th October 2006 Archive

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MacBooks, iPods power Apple's fourth quarter

Intel effect due any day

Apple has broken yet another quarterly sales record thanks to the power of Mac and customer demand for Intel-based MacBooks outstripping supply. Apple shipped 1.6m Macs in its Q4, besting its previous record of 1.3m in Q1 2000. For the three months to September 30, Mac sales rose 37 per cent to $2.21bn, and accounted for 58 per …

Mac 19 Oct 2006, 00:04
Logitech picks up Slim Devices for $20m

Squeezebox acquired by mouse maker

Slim Devices, maker of the Squeezebox networked digital music player, has been plugged into mouse manufacturer Logitech, the two firms announced last night. Logitech will pay $20m in cash for the firm - maybe more if the new subsidiary hits undisclosed future revenue targets. Slim Devices portrayed the acquisition as a …

Gadgets and Gizmos 19 Oct 2006, 08:43
ATI: all our GPUs will be 80nm by July 2007

And then it'll release 65nm parts...

ATI may have only just shipped its first 80nm graphics chip - the Radeon X1950 Pro, reviewed here - but it's already talking about the 45nm node. It's out to adopt such a process by 2008, a senior staffer has revealed. Speaking at the Taiwanese launch of the X1950 Pro earlier this week, Edward Chou, marketing chief at ATI's …

Bits 'n' Chips 19 Oct 2006, 09:21
HP knocks Dell off PC pedestal without trying

Round Rock's shame

HP has snatched the PC crown from Dell's barely coherent clutches. It has taken HP close to three years to once again lead the market in worldwide PC sales. Under CEO Carly Fiorina and post Compaq, the company largely gave up on the tit-for-tat struggle with Dell for the PC top spot that had been so important to it over the …

PCs 19 Oct 2006, 09:27
Feds allege Samsung, Hynix execs fixed DRAM prices

Hefty fines, jail terms if convicted

Two Samsung executives and a senior Hynix employee have been formally charged with conspiring to fix DRAM prices worldwide between 1 April 2001 and 15 June 2002, US antitrust investigators with the Department of Justice announced yesterday. The three defendants are charged with violating the US Sherman Act. If convicted, they …

Bits 'n' Chips 19 Oct 2006, 09:56
PS3 delays, burning batteries undermine Sony profits

Giant slashes full-year earnings forecast

Sony has slashed its annual earnings forecast by 38 per cent. The consumer electronics giant blamed the cut on its worldwide laptop battery recall, the need to reduce the launch price of the PlayStation 3 in Japan and delay its European release, and below-expectations sales of the PlayStation Portable. The upshot? Sony will …

Consoles 19 Oct 2006, 10:25
Intel cans second-generation Centrino chips

'Sonoma' demise signalled

Intel has reportedly told customers they will no longer be able to buy 'Dothan' Pentium M processors come January 2007. These processors - and, indeed, other components of the 'Sonoma' generation of the company's Centrino platform - now have a December deadline for orders. Given we're already onto the second incarnation of ' …

Bits 'n' Chips 19 Oct 2006, 10:40
Intel to bring vPro tech to laptops with Centrino Pro?

Business-friendly 'Santa Rosa' strand

We've seen Centrino and, more recently, Centrino Duo, but will you now please welcome Centrino Pro, said to be the go-to-market brand for upcoming business-oriented laptops incorporating Intel's vPro technologies. So claim industry sources cited by Chinese-language website HKEPC, at any rate. Intel announced vPro earlier this …

Bits 'n' Chips 19 Oct 2006, 11:12
Sony Ericsson kit in demand as world phone sales surge

Beats Nokia et al on growth, profitability

World+dog bought 256.2m mobile phones during Q3 - 21.9 per more than they bought in the year-ago quarter. Most of the handsets acquired during the three-month period were made by Nokia, but fourth-placed Sony Ericsson showed the highest year-on-year growth, market watcher Strategy Analytics (SA) said today. Nokia's market …

Phones 19 Oct 2006, 12:02
Vertu talks up mobile telephone for toffs

If you have to ask how much it is, you're too common to own one

Posh people's phone maker Vertu has announced its latest handset, Constellation, details of which emerged back in August through an unofficial posting on the web. Apparently bothered by the leak, Vertu has post-dated its announcement back to May 2006 to ensure it was first with the news. The release certainly wasn't there …

Gadgets and Gizmos 19 Oct 2006, 13:21
Mobiboo UTstarcom F3000 Wi-Fi VoIP phone

Review It flips, it SIPs

Most Wi-Fi VoIP phones on the market today are designed to work with Skype, and almost all of them a candybar handsets. Not so the UTstarcom F3000, which UK VoIP company Mobiboo is pitching as the Mobiboo 3000. It not only works with the standard SIP VoIP protocol but it's also a clamshell handset... If you haven't heard of …

Phones 19 Oct 2006, 19:46
Ex-Gizmondo exec on trial for Ferrari theft

Embezzlement and drunken driving too

A Swedish former executive of Gizmondo, the crash and burn handheld games firm, was in a Los Angeles court today, standing trial for drunken driving, car theft and embezzlement. Bo Stefan Eriksson's world came crashing down on 21 February, one month after Gizmondo went bust with $200m debts, when he wrapped a $1m Ferrari Enzo …

Consoles 19 Oct 2006, 20:37