JitNik's Tech World

LG has announced its intentions to launch its first Tegra based phones by the end of 2010.

These new devices would be based on the second generation NVIDIA Tegra mobile processor - also known as the Tegra 2 System on a Chip (SoC). This processor is a powerful dual core number cruncher that would provide hitherto unheard of processing power for hand-held devices.

The winners of NDTV Tech Life Year Awards, 2010 in respective categories are:

Beijing (China) – Intel used the first day of the Spring IDF in Beijing to show off its Moorestown integrated processor, which is expected to replace the current Atom CPU and chipset later this year or early 2010. The company also introduced two new Z-series Atom processors.

It was the first time that a Moorestown chip was shown live to the public. What makes this processor special is the fact that it integrates graphics and all other chipset components on-die, which will make it substantially smaller and apparently less power hungry than today’s Atom generation.

Moorestown is promised to run at ten times less idle power than the current Atom platform. Intel declined to reveal how much power the chip will actually consume and, at least for us, it is difficult to estimate that number. Today’s Atom relies on a 45 nm processor as well as an older chipset design, based on an updated i915 version, which is called System Controller Hub (SCH) as part of the Atom platform. The SCH is manufactured in 130 nm and simply too power hungry and too large to be used in small mobile devices such as smartphones.

Moorestown is expected to become Intel’s second serious attempt to make an impact in the cellphone market – the first was the Xscale processor, a technology which was acquired by Marvell in 2006. However, this time, the CPU seems to be much more focused and could turn into an interesting competitor to ARM processors.

Intel also launched two new Atom processors with Silverthorne core. The Z550 is positioned on the very high-end with a clock speed of 2.0 GHz and support for a virtual second core. Intel said that the chip consumes a maximum of less than 3 watts and about 220 mWatts on average. There was no information on how expensive the chip will be, but we would expect this model to be a low-volume device that will replace the 1.86 GHz Z540 as the flagship of the Silverthorne family. We haven’t seen the $160 (including SCH) Z540 in any significant devices so far and do not expect that this will change with the Z550. The use of a $160 CPU+Chipset does not make a lot of sense in products consumers expect to cost less than $500 and system vendors have largely passed on it.

The second new processor is the Z515, which includes the company’s new “Burst Performance Technology” and allows the processor to run at 1.2 GHz, instead of just 1.1 GHz. Don’t expect these new Atom processors to become available anytime soon in netbooks, as they are exclusive targeted at (more expensive) MID’s where less power consumption is more important than more performance.

Intel briefly touched the topic of upcoming mobile Nehalem processors, which are scheduled for a H2 2009 launch. The company said that these CPUs “will be more powerful than their predecessors by including such technologies as Intel Hyper-Threading Technology and Intel Turbo Boost Technology.”

Nokia's 8 MP N86 announced at the MWC at Barcelona earlier this year has started shipping globally.

"People demand mobile cameras that take excellent pictures in all light conditions," says Juha-Pekka Sipponen, Director, Nokia Nseries. "That's why the aperture of the Nokia N86 8MP is comparable to that of a high-quality, stand-alone digital camera. Whether it's running with the bulls in Pamplona or capturing the panoramic beauty of a sunrise over Sydney, the Nokia N86 8MP will take brilliantly clear, wide-angle images that are instantly geotagged to be uploaded onto sites like Ovi Share or Flickr."

The Nokia N86 8MP camera includes a wide-angle Carl Zeiss Tessar lens for panoramic pictures, shorter latencies and variable aperture for super sharp photos in challenging bright and low light conditions. A fast mechanical shutter will help ensure pictures with less motion blur. What could be construed as a disappointment would be the presence of a dual LED camera flash instead of a Xenon.

"When it comes to taking the best digital photos, it's the quality of the lens and the sensor that count, not just the quantity of pixels. The Nokia N86 8MP is the first mobile device with variable aperture, adding to the Carl Zeiss Tessar lens for excellent results. It has never been easier to capture special moments in such a great quality," says Helmut Heier of Carl Zeiss.

The handset features -

* 2.6 inch OLED, scratch resistant hardened glass display with a 240 x 320 pixel resolution
* Dual Slider
* 8GB of internal memory (microSD card support)
* HSDPA, Wi-Fi, EDGE
* Bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0 (micro)
* GPS with A-GPS support (Nokia Maps)
* FM radio with RDS and FM transmitter feature
* 3.5mm AV socket
* Rear kickstand

The Nokia N86 8MP estimated retail price of Rs. 23, 331 (EUR 375), before taxes and subsidies.

Western Digital Corp. today(June 9),released its biggest consumer external hard-disk drive targeted at Mac users with a whopping 4TB of capacity.

The drive's $650 price tag may turn some off, but if you need space to fit 1,540 DVD movies, 800,000 digital photos or one million MP3 music files, then this may be the drive you.

The My Book Studio Edition II drive comes in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities and is designed with WD's GreenPower Technology, so the system uses about 30% less energy than standard WD drive systems and runs quietly because it doesn't need a fan.
The drive comes with a four ports, ultra-fast eSATA and FireWire 800, and FireWire 400 and USB 2.0, along with the accompanying cables.

It is compatible with Apple's Time Machine and includes software and instructions for reformatting to Windows operating systems. The system supports Mac OS X 10.4.10+, 10.5.2+ Windows 2000/XP/Vista: The 4TB version works with Windows Vista only because Windows XP does not support hard drives with capacities above 2TB.

The new My Book Studio Edition II two internal drives can be configured for RAID 0, which affords users the full 4 TB of capacity, or RAID 1, which mirrors the two drives to protect data in case of a drive failure but reduces storage capacity by half.

The new drive comes with a 5-year limited warranty.

Intel has announced the successor to Intel Core 2 Quad (codename Yorkfield) to be Intel Core i7 (codename Nehalem).Intel Core i7 is the successor to Core 2 architecture. All the newly available chips have 4 cores inside. Core i7 microprocessor represents a major advance in computing to enable chips to handle more data



Difference between Intel Core i7 and Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors

Intel Core i7

Codenamed: Bloomfield - Nehalem
Fabrication: 45 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1366
Bus: Quick Path Interconnect
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: X58


Intel Core 2 Duo

Codenamed: Conroe, Allendale, Wolfdale - Core 2
Fabrication: 65 nm / 45 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.1
Socket: LGA 775
Bus: 1333 MHz FSB
RAM: DDR2
Chipset Support: 965, P3x, G3x, P45, X48

Explanation:Difference between Intel Core i7 and Core 2 Duo

The Core i7 is a completely new architecture which is much faster and more efficient than the Core 2 Duo. Currently only the Core i7 920, 945 and 965 XE versions are available. Of that the Core i7 920 is available at just $284 which makes it a great buy. It offers better performance than almost all Core 2 Duo processors.

Native Quad Core, More Cache and Hyper Threading:

All the Core i7 processors are Native Quad cores (4 cores), which means that they actually have 4 cores on a single die, while the older Core 2 Duo processors like the Q6600 (2×2 = 4 cores) had two cores on a single die, and two such dies merged together. This increases the processing speed greatly. They also have 256 KB L2 cache per core and a shared 8 MB L3 cache which has proven to be much better than any cache configuration in Core 2 Duo.

It also has HyperThreading support which means that each of the 4 cores can process 2 threads simultaneously, so you get 8 virtual cores. This helps in running many applications parallely and also in gaming.

Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) and On Die Memory Controller:

The Core i7 processors sport the new Quick Path Interconnect technology which replaces the FSB (Front Side Bus) to connect the various components in a computer. QPI is much faster than FSB and hence improves the overall performance. It is even faster than AMD’s similar HyperTransport 3.0 standard.

The Core i7 have an On Die Memory Controller which means that it can access memory much faster than the Core 2 Duo processors which had an external memory controller. Intel has borrowed this feature from AMD. All the four cores, memory controller, cache are on the same die which improves the speed and performance greatly.

If you use your notebook computer as your main computer and if you have a spare monitor, then you can put your monitor to good use by making it your Laptop’s secondary monitor. It doesn’t really matter if the second monitor is a CRT or TFT, both work fine. First, let’s see why you would want to add a secondary monitor to your laptop. Here are a few reasons:



.It instantly doubles your desktop space with buying a larger monitor.
.You can work with two maximised windows at the same time.
.If you are working on a tool like Photoshop, which has lots of toolbars and panels, you could move the tools to the second monitor and have a large work area on your main monitor.
.If you need to compare two documents, you can open each of the documents in a different monitor.
.When browsing your picture library, you can view the thumbnails on one monitor, and use the second monitor to view the pictures full screen.
.If you need to stay on top of your e-mail while working, you can keep your inbox open on one monitor and work on the other.

These are just a few suggestion but actually how you use the dual monitors is only limited by your imagination. Now lets see how to set up the secondary monitor. Make sure that both your Laptop and the monitor are switched off. Connect the monitor to your Laptop by connecting it to the VGA or DVI connector, typically found on the rear of your laptop computer. Now switch on your laptop and the monitor. You will notice that initially, only one of the two monitors is activated. You can usually switch between the monitors by pressing the hotkeys in your laptop. Normally, it is a combination of the Fn key with another key with an image of a monitor on it (normally found on one of the function keys). To bring on the display on both the monitors you’ll need to adjust your display settings by following these steps:


1.Right-Click on an empty area on your desktop. On the context menu that pops-up click on Properties and on the resulting ‘Display Properties‘ window, go to the Settings tab.




2.Click the monitor icon labeled 2, and then select the Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor checkbox.
3.If necessary, drag the monitor icons so that they are arranged in the same way as the monitors on your desk. Clicking on the Identify button will help you know which monitor is 1 and which monitor is 2.





4.If need be, change the resolution of your secondary monitor to the most appropriate settings. You change the resolution of both the monitors independently.
5.Click Apply. Windows XP will activate your new monitor.
6.Finaly, click OK.

Once your monitor is set up, you can use your mouse to grab the title bar of a window and drag it to your new display. Make sure that the window your are trying to drag is not maximised, in which case you will not be able to drag it. To be able to drag it, first double-click on the title bar and then drag it. It may take you a while to get used to working on dual monitors, but once you do, it will forever change the way you work with your computer. Be creative and experiment with the sizing of application windows and what information you can keep in constant view while doing multiple tasks.

Intel has announced that its latest range of desktop processors will officially be called, Intel Core processors.This new Intel processors will be based on company’s upcoming microarchitecture formerly codenamed “Nehalem”.



The first products by Intel in this new family of processors, which also includes an “Extreme Edition” version, will carry an “i7” identifier and will be formally branded as “Intel Core i7 processor.” This is the first of many new identifiers to come as different products launch over the next year.

Intel claims that products based on the new microarchitecture will deliver high performance and energy efficiency. Besides, they also feature Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, which is also known as simultaneous multi-threading, and is capable of handling eight software “threads” on four processor cores.


The products based on the Nehalem are expected to be in the production by the end of 2008.