AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced it is improving the visual experience for financial traders while simultaneously helping to reduce power consumption needs for some of the world’s largest financial institutions. The new ATI FireMV™ 2260 2D workstation and desktop accelerator card enhances "trader density” in financial institutions, where IT managers seek to maximize productivity in every bit of workspace, overcrowded with people and hardware, while improving power consumption and cooling needs. "Building on the innovative reputation of AMD among financial services customers, ATI FireMV graphics are quickly becoming the preferred solution for traders in some of the world’s largest financial institutions,” said Janet Matsuda, senior director, Professional Graphics, AMD. "With the introduction of the ATI FireMV 2260 graphics accelerator, AMD extends its technology and energy efficiency leadership. ATI FireMV 2260 enables financial institutions and corporations in general to reduce energy consumption, maximize today’s workspace productivity and better plan for technology implementations in the future.” "Traders are dealing with ever-increasing amounts of financial and stock data that need to be accessed and analyzed in real-time, requiring multiple large displays to be crammed into tight desk spaces. The end result can often mean wasted space as well as increased heating and cooling requirements and associated costs,” said Gene Peters, director of Information Services, Philadelphia Stock Exchange. "Financial institutions need graphics solutions that address density issues. The energy efficiency ATI FireMV 2260 graphics cards allows for more powerful and smaller systems, meaning we can fit more people and more systems in the same space, therefore maximizing ‘trader density’ and better managing heating and cooling costs.” Renowned financial institutions throughout the world are implementing ATI FireMV graphics accelerators in earnest. Three of the world’s largest financial services organizations, two of which rank in the Top 50 of the 2007 Fortune 500, have recently standardized on the ATI FireMV series and are immediately realizing energy efficiencies, cost savings and the space economies these products can help deliver. Investment Protection The ATI FireMV graphics accelerator offers customers exceptional energy efficiency, while supporting new and emerging technologies like the Microsoft Windows® Vista™ operating system. Notable features include: Ability to view 2D and 3D live video feeds: Traders using the ATI FireMV 2260 can receive up-to-date information from online news sources that provide live streaming video. Certification and optimization for Microsoft Windows Vista and the Aero interface: The ATI FireMV accelerator incorporates 3D graphics into its design to ensure The Ultimate Visual Experience™ for Windows Vista. Passive Cooling for Improved Reliability: ATI FireMV 2260 features a passive heat sink, an innovative feature that dissipates heat from the GPU and eliminates the use of a cooling fan for quieter operation with fewer mechanical parts, making it the first "fan-less” dual DisplayPort (and therefore truly energy efficient) graphics card. Approve one graphics card for use in your company’s systems: the small form factor of the ATI FireMV 2260 enables IT departments to standardize on one card that can be installed in a broad range of x86-based systems, including workstations, desktop PCs and docking stations featuring AMD or other processors. Two DisplayPorts: ATI FireMV 2260 is the first graphics card to offer two DisplayPorts, the latest standard that allows users to connect up to two large high resolution monitors with smaller and thinner cords. Assistance with long-term IT planning: The ATI FireMV 2260 supports emerging standards like PCI Express 2.0. The lower profile, half-length design of the ATI FireMV 2260 fits in practically any PCI, PCI Express 1.0 and PCI Express 16x slot for maximum flexibility. Product Warranty: Unlike typical consumer PC graphics cards that only offer a one-year lifecycle, the ATI FireMV card offers a three-year warranty for an extended product lifecycle. Pricing and Availability The ATI FireMV 2260 2D workstation and desktop accelerator card is expected to begin shipping in April 2008 and will be available from workstation OEMs, system integrators and AMD channel partners worldwide. The MSRP is $249 USD. For more information about ATI FireMV products from AMD, please visit http://ati.amd.com/products/firemvseries/index.html. About AMD Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing, graphics and consumer electronics markets. AMD is dedicated to driving open innovation, choice and industry growth by delivering superior customer-centric solutions that empower consumers and businesses worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, ATI, the ATI logo, FireMV, The Ultimate Visual Experience and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
http://newsticker.welt.de/index.php?channel=fin&module=smarthouse&id=691350
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Sony's mylo: No Match for iTouch
It's a sight that anyone who has recently been to Tokyo can't miss: Japanese mobile-phone users fixated on their handsets' tiny screens. Take a closer look and you will see that they're furiously tapping out e-mails, playing video games, listening to music or podcasts, watching TV, updating blogs, or searching the Internet. It hardly seems to matter that they have just 13 keys to surf the Web.
Personally, I prefer a PC with a standard QWERTY keyboard and a touchpad or mouse. So when Sony (SNE) agreed to lend me its new mylo (short for "my life online"), I couldn't wait to test it. I imagined a mobile, wireless device rivaling Japan's cell phones in size and features yet also boasting a touchscreen and a PC-like Web browser. And since it relies on standard WiFi technology instead of cellular networks to gain access to the Net, mylo will work when you travel between, say, the U.S. and Japan, which have incompatible cellular technology standards.
A week with the mylo, I figured, and I'll be saying sayonara to my mobile phone€and perhaps even my laptop. But it didn't work out that way: The mylo was more of a disappointment than a delight.
Weighed Twice as Much as My Mobile Phone
Like its predecessor, introduced in 2006, the second-generation mylo is for online junkies who want Web communication tools but can't be bothered booting up a computer. The latest version, which has been available in the U.S. since February and in Japan since Mar. 1, has a cleaner, more tapered design than the rounded, toy-like appearance of its predecessor. It slides open to reveal a backlit QWERTY keyboard.
But while Sony has made vast improvements to the mylo, it's still far from ideal. My biggest gripe was with Net connectivity. It took so long to open Web sites that, after a frustrating hour with the mylo, I gave up and switched to my laptop. (I could have plugged the mylo into my laptop, but then what's the point of having a wireless device?) I also wished the 200-gram mylo was lighter; it weighed twice as much as my mobile phone and was several times thicker.
At home, where I did most of the testing, I have high-speed broadband service and a WiFi router. My connection speeds are consistently between 60 and 100 megabits per second. (To give you an idea of how fast that is, it's more than 12 times the average U.S. broadband speed, according to a 2007 report by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a Washington (D.C.) think tank.) On my laptop, YouTube (GOOG) videos load in seconds, as do most Web sites.
Not Enough Memory for My Liking
But using the mylo was like rewinding to a time before broadband. It took more than two minutes to play a YouTube video of African-American enka singer Jerome White, a top-selling musician in Japan's homegrown blues scene. I got an error message when I tried Boing Boing, The Onion, and Slate.com (WPO). Ditto when I attempted to download a BusinessWeek (MHP) podcast. I got impatient and gave up trying to read The New York Times (NYT). With other sites, such as Google (GOOG) and Yahoo! (YHOO), I fared a bit better, as I did when I played user-generated videos on Sony's eyevio site.
The most glaring hole in the mylo's features: the ability to rent and download full-length movies or TV shows from an online store, a service available on the Touch through Apple's iTunes store. If you happen to own a Sony digital video recorder, laptop, or video camera, you might be able download and save clips, TV shows, and movies on a memory stick and view them on the mylo. But nowhere did any of the Sony online manuals and tutorials mention such a possibility. You would also have to buy a memory stick. The mylo only comes with 1 gigabyte of memory, which seems small when you consider that Apple's (APPL) iPod Touch—priced at $299 like the mylo—has 8GB of memory.
Overall, Sony has made its software easier to use than ever before, but Apple's is still the gold standard. That's not to say there weren't things I liked about the mylo. The first step of establishing a WiFi link was simple and intuitive. A new 3.5-inch touchscreen makes menus and Web pages easier to view and navigate, and six spots along the edge of display act like the pulldown menus at the top of a PC Web browser. Zooming in and out of Web pages and double-tapping hyperlinks took some getting used to, but it was better than trying to click my way around. (One downside: You can't toggle between pages by flicking your finger across the screen as you would do on the Touch.)
Voice Calls Via Skype
Like the iPod Touch, the mylo can download and play music and get RSS feeds. There's also a starting screen that can be customized with 20 widgets, or shortcuts, for maps, Web-based instant messaging or e-mail services or social networking sites. Once I was online, I was firing off e-mails and instant messages with the mylo's QWERTY keyboard nearly quickly as I might from a laptop.
The mylo has a few traits that distinguish it from the Touch. You can snap photos with the camera, add messages or draw on the photos, and attach them to e-mails. The mylo also has Adobe (ADBE) Flash for Web pages and animation clips. You can even make voice calls with Skype's (EBAY) online phone service, holding the mylo to your ear as you would a phone. Still, taking advantage of these goodies depends on being online. I hope Sony deals with the mylo's glacially slow connectivity issues soon.
Form : http://www.businessweek.com/
Personally, I prefer a PC with a standard QWERTY keyboard and a touchpad or mouse. So when Sony (SNE) agreed to lend me its new mylo (short for "my life online"), I couldn't wait to test it. I imagined a mobile, wireless device rivaling Japan's cell phones in size and features yet also boasting a touchscreen and a PC-like Web browser. And since it relies on standard WiFi technology instead of cellular networks to gain access to the Net, mylo will work when you travel between, say, the U.S. and Japan, which have incompatible cellular technology standards.
A week with the mylo, I figured, and I'll be saying sayonara to my mobile phone€and perhaps even my laptop. But it didn't work out that way: The mylo was more of a disappointment than a delight.
Weighed Twice as Much as My Mobile Phone
Like its predecessor, introduced in 2006, the second-generation mylo is for online junkies who want Web communication tools but can't be bothered booting up a computer. The latest version, which has been available in the U.S. since February and in Japan since Mar. 1, has a cleaner, more tapered design than the rounded, toy-like appearance of its predecessor. It slides open to reveal a backlit QWERTY keyboard.
But while Sony has made vast improvements to the mylo, it's still far from ideal. My biggest gripe was with Net connectivity. It took so long to open Web sites that, after a frustrating hour with the mylo, I gave up and switched to my laptop. (I could have plugged the mylo into my laptop, but then what's the point of having a wireless device?) I also wished the 200-gram mylo was lighter; it weighed twice as much as my mobile phone and was several times thicker.
At home, where I did most of the testing, I have high-speed broadband service and a WiFi router. My connection speeds are consistently between 60 and 100 megabits per second. (To give you an idea of how fast that is, it's more than 12 times the average U.S. broadband speed, according to a 2007 report by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a Washington (D.C.) think tank.) On my laptop, YouTube (GOOG) videos load in seconds, as do most Web sites.
Not Enough Memory for My Liking
But using the mylo was like rewinding to a time before broadband. It took more than two minutes to play a YouTube video of African-American enka singer Jerome White, a top-selling musician in Japan's homegrown blues scene. I got an error message when I tried Boing Boing, The Onion, and Slate.com (WPO). Ditto when I attempted to download a BusinessWeek (MHP) podcast. I got impatient and gave up trying to read The New York Times (NYT). With other sites, such as Google (GOOG) and Yahoo! (YHOO), I fared a bit better, as I did when I played user-generated videos on Sony's eyevio site.
The most glaring hole in the mylo's features: the ability to rent and download full-length movies or TV shows from an online store, a service available on the Touch through Apple's iTunes store. If you happen to own a Sony digital video recorder, laptop, or video camera, you might be able download and save clips, TV shows, and movies on a memory stick and view them on the mylo. But nowhere did any of the Sony online manuals and tutorials mention such a possibility. You would also have to buy a memory stick. The mylo only comes with 1 gigabyte of memory, which seems small when you consider that Apple's (APPL) iPod Touch—priced at $299 like the mylo—has 8GB of memory.
Overall, Sony has made its software easier to use than ever before, but Apple's is still the gold standard. That's not to say there weren't things I liked about the mylo. The first step of establishing a WiFi link was simple and intuitive. A new 3.5-inch touchscreen makes menus and Web pages easier to view and navigate, and six spots along the edge of display act like the pulldown menus at the top of a PC Web browser. Zooming in and out of Web pages and double-tapping hyperlinks took some getting used to, but it was better than trying to click my way around. (One downside: You can't toggle between pages by flicking your finger across the screen as you would do on the Touch.)
Voice Calls Via Skype
Like the iPod Touch, the mylo can download and play music and get RSS feeds. There's also a starting screen that can be customized with 20 widgets, or shortcuts, for maps, Web-based instant messaging or e-mail services or social networking sites. Once I was online, I was firing off e-mails and instant messages with the mylo's QWERTY keyboard nearly quickly as I might from a laptop.
The mylo has a few traits that distinguish it from the Touch. You can snap photos with the camera, add messages or draw on the photos, and attach them to e-mails. The mylo also has Adobe (ADBE) Flash for Web pages and animation clips. You can even make voice calls with Skype's (EBAY) online phone service, holding the mylo to your ear as you would a phone. Still, taking advantage of these goodies depends on being online. I hope Sony deals with the mylo's glacially slow connectivity issues soon.
Form : http://www.businessweek.com/
Analyst: Sony Worried Over 360 Price Cuts
With Microsoft dropping Xbox 360 prices by a substantial chunk of change in Europe this Friday, you have to wonder how Sony is taking the news. While Strategy Analytics analyst David Mercer doesn't see the price of the PlayStation 3 dropping before the end of the year, he does believe Sony is going to be paying close attention to their day-to-day sales numbers from here on out.
"Sony will be nervous that the PS3's recent sales surge may fizzle out now that the premium Xbox 360 undercuts the PS3 by GBP 40, and the cheapest Xbox model is almost half the price of the PS3," commented principle analyst David Mercer.I can imagine this is certainly true, but things will get a lot less worrisome once June 12th rolls about. Nothing spurs momentum than the game that millions bought your console for in the first place!
Sony "nervous" following Xbox 360 price cut [GamesIndustry.biz]
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