CES-Freescale chip targets sub-$200 netbook market

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Freescale Semiconductor Inc is moving in on the fastest-growing segment of the PC market, announcing on Monday a new chip for netbooks that are priced below $200.

The move is the latest sign that consumers can expect to see even cheaper netbooks in the near future. Although prices vary widely, the most popular models of these small, inexpensive laptops are now priced in the $300-$400 range.

"What they're (Freescale) targeting is definitely the way netbooks are going," said Phil Solis of ABI Research.

Freescale's new ARM-based chip is from its i.MX line, which is designed for various mobile devices. The company said the chip would allow a netbook with an 8.9-inch display to receive eight hours of battery life. Freescale's reference design features the Linux-based Ubuntu operating system.

The company did not give a price for the chip, which will be showcased at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.

Netbooks have taken the PC world by storm. Research group DisplaySearch estimates notebook shipments at 14 million in 2008, up from less than 1 million in 2007.

Currently, Intel Corp's (INTC.O) Atom processor dominates the netbook market, although competition is likely to heat up. Rival chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.N) will also unveil a chip for ultra-portables at CES.

The success of netbooks has stirred fears about segment cannibalization and pinched margins for PC makers.

Henri Richard, Freescale's chief sales and marketing officer, said the torrid growth of the netbook market made it impossible to ignore and that fears of cannibalization are overblown. Any company that refuses to get into the space is "making a huge mistake," he said.

"It's happening, it's there, it's real. And if you're not there to take advantage of it, you're going to miss big," said Richard.

Richard said some are predicting as many as 30 million to 40 million netbook shipments in 2009. DisplaySearch expects netbooks to make up 16 percent of the notebook market by 2011.

Richard, who left AMD in 2007 after spending seven years as head of sales and marketing, said Freescale's netbook offering is seeing "significant interest" from contract computer manufacturers in Taiwan.

"Since those guys never develop anything unless they have customers behind them, that must mean that some large market players are looking at the technology," he said.

Asustek (2357.TW), for one, has said it plans to release a netbook for as little as $200.

Austin, Texas-based Freescale was spun off from Motorola Inc (MOT.N) in 2004 and taken private in a $17.6 billion leveraged buyout in December 2006.

The company's sales in 2007 totaled $5.7 billion. (Reporting by Gabriel Madway, editing by Matthew Lewis)

 

Source :http://www.reuters.com/

Wi-Tricity gadgets to be unveiled at CES

Analysts expect wireless devices to be among the stars of the Consumer Electronics Show, as manufacturers from around the world gather in Las Vegas to show off their latest technology.

Other highly anticipated devices include super-thin high-definition televisions and ultra-portable cheap laptops that may appeal to shoppers squeezed by the credit crisis.

The "wireless technology", or "Wi-Tricity" at the heart of this plug-free future would be able to turn objects and even rooms into electricity hotspots, meaning you could charge a mobile phone simply by placing it on a Wi-Tricity desk, or power your laptop in an airport lounge without a power cable.

Exhibitors such as PowerMat and PowerBeam will be showing off devices that use Wi-Tricity. PowerBeam's system uses an invisible laser, beamed across to a solar cell, which converts the heat generated by the beam into enough usable electricity to power a set of small wireless speakers.

Athough Wi-Tricity isn't sufficiently advanced to power laptops or larger electonics, analysts expect to see the first digital picture frames and compact speaker systems at CES that use the technology.

Netbooks – small low-cost versions of laptops such as the Asus Eee PC that proved such a hit with consumers this year – are also going to be one of the major product categories at the show, with Intel and Sony among the many companies launching their own "netbook" devices.

Televisions, too, are expected to get thinner, with bigger, better quality screens. An increasing number of televisions will also offer internet connectivity, meaning that in future, viewers could download movies from the web straight to their TV and even communicate with friends while watching a programme.

 

Source : http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Asus Eee Top

NOT resting on its laurels after its wildly popular Eee PC launched in October last year, Asus has come up with the Eee Top, an all-in-one desktop PC with a touchscreen display.

The Eee Top is likely to become a second PC for the home. In fact, one of my first thoughts after unpacking the machine was that it could go into the kitchen. Its 15.6 inch screen takes up little space on the counter top, or on the wall, should you choose to mount it.

Besides offering storage for the bundled keyboard, the carrying handle also allows for the easy transportation of this 4.3 kg machine,

Like its brothers in the Eee series, the Eee Top sports an Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of memory and onboard Intel graphics. Storage is a 160GB hard disk.

There are six USB ports and a memory card slot. There is no optical drive though, so users who want to play their CDs and DVDs will need an external USB drive.

Nevertheless, there is fast Wireless N and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, so the machine can easily play music and videos over, say, a home network without stuttering. A 1.3-megapixel webcam is included.

The star feature of this machine, however, is its touch interface. The entire display is touch-sensitive. So, you can junk the keyboard and mouse if you wish and poke your way around the programs.

While the Eee Top runs Windows XP Home, it starts up in the Easy Mode interface designed for neophytes who have not used a computer, let alone the Windows interface, before.

You can launch the most commonly used applications by simply touching the large icons organised under four tabs - Communication, Fun, Work and Tools. Apps such as Skype, Internet Explorer and Opera are also included.

Using the Eee Cam, I had a blast sending animated emoticons such as flying kisses and punches and doodling on the screen during Skype video chats.

Most of the time, the finger-pointing was via the SoftStylus application, a handwriting recognition software that features a virtual keyboard. Use it to input Web addresses and search keywords. For long reports though, you would want to fall back on the real keyboard.

Also fun is the Eee Memo, an electronic post-it pad. Scribble messages for family members using the pen stylus rather than your fingers for better legibility.

 

Source : http://digital.asiaone.com/

Freescale chases $199 netbook with new processor

Freescale on Monday is expected to announce a new processor for netbooks that may challenge chip maker Intel on price in the low-cost computing space.

The company's i.MX515 processor will run on netbooks, low-cost laptops that are designed to perform basic computing functions like accessing the Internet and running productivity applications.

Intel dominates the netbook space with its Atom processors, which are found in netbooks priced around US$299. Freescale hopes to drive costs down even further by putting its processors in $199 netbooks. Netbooks have gained in popularity since Intel started shipping Atom last year, and Freescale wants a piece of the pie as shipments continue to grow.

Freescale will demonstrate an i.MX515-powered netbook with Wi-Fi wireless networking made by Pegatron, a spinoff of Asus, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas between Jan. 8-11. It wasn't immediately clear whether Pegatron would distribute netbooks with the Freescale processors.

In addition to lowering prices, Freescale hopes to improve battery life over Intel's Atom chips, said Glen Burchers, marketing director at Freescale's consumer division. Netbooks with Freescale processors will be able to run for around eight hours, according to the company. That level of performance would top the battery life of Atom-based netbooks.

The processor requires less power to run and doesn't need a heat sink or fan to cool as it is designed from a core used in communication devices like cell phones, Burchers said. The i.MX515 processor is based on the Cortex-A8 core from Arm, which can scale in performance up to 1GHz. It supports 3D graphics and can playback high-definition video.

Freescale hopes its processors will catch on with audiences like teenagers, who access the Internet intermittently for Web browsing and social networking.

"We believe the netbook is a device that is going to be primarily targeted at Internet access, that is a companion device to computers and to smartphones. It is not a replacement for either," Burchers said. Options to connect to the Internet, like Wi-Fi wireless networking, will be included in Freescale-based netbooks.

The chips will ship by the middle of this year, Burchers said. Some companies are considering using it in netbooks, though Burchers didn't provide any names. The netbooks could include screen sizes from 8.9 to 10 inches, and could reach buyers by the end of the year, he said.

 

Continues : http://www.networkworld.com/

Nintendo to launch Wii TV

Nintendo has unveiled plans to launch a new online on-demand television channel through the Wii.

The service, entitled Wiinoma, as reported by The Times, would see advertising supported programmes broadcast throughout Japan's online console audience, with the later possibility of pay-per-view titles also being offered through the Wii Points system.

Wiinoma's content, generated by Japan's biggest advertising agency Dentsu, will be "family-oriented", including cartoons, cookery shows and educational programmes as well as Brain Training-style quizzes. The service is set to launch in Japan this spring, however Nintendo is said to be "considering international expansion".

A senior executive at Fuji Television, Japan's biggest commercial broadcaster, commented that if plans by Nintendo to make the Wii "the centrepiece of the living room" took off in a meaningful way, then it would be "the stuff of television producers' nightmares".

 

source : http://www.gamesindustry.biz/

European Stock-Index Futures Advance; Nokia, Philips May Gain

Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- European stock-index futures and Asian shares advanced on speculation that government efforts to revive the global economy through tax cuts and spending will spur growth.

U.S.-traded securities of Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest mobile-phone maker, and Royal Philips Electronics NV, Europe’s largest consumer-electronics maker, gained. BHP Billiton Ltd. led mining stocks higher in Asia after metals prices rose and officials said U.S. President-elect Barack Obama may reduce taxes by more than $300 billion.

Futures on the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 Index, a benchmark for the euro region, added 0.9 percent to 2,557 at 7:10 a.m. in London. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index may increase 16, according to Cantor Index, a betting firm.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rallied for an eighth straight day, rising 1.6 percent, as the Sankei newspaper said Japan’s government may buy nonperforming loans from banks and India’s central bank cut interest rates for a fourth time since October. That’s the longest stretch of advances for stocks since 2004.

“Expectations of an Obama stimulus package including a $300 billion tax rebate rekindled a few smoldering investment embers in the Far East today,” David Buik, a London-based trader at BGC Partners in London, wrote.

U.S. stocks climbed to a two-month high last week, following the market’s worst annual drop since the Great Depression, as General Motors Corp. got its first cash infusion from the government. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slipped 0.4 percent today.

Europe’s Stoxx 600 Index has gained 12 percent since Nov. 21 as Obama pledged to stimulate growth with the biggest infrastructure investment since the 1950s and the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to as low as zero percent to combat the worst global financial crisis in seven decades.

Tax Reductions

Obama is asking that tax cuts make up 40 percent of a stimulus package, according to a transition official and Democratic aides. The measure may be worth as much as $775 billion, a Democratic aide says, meaning tax cuts may constitute more than $300 billion of the legislation.

American depositary receipts of Nokia added 1.1 percent from the stock’s close in Finland. ADRs of Philips rose 1.2 percent from the close in the Netherlands.

BHP, the world’s biggest mining company, added 3.4 percent in Australia. Rio Tinto Group, the third-largest, jumped 8.6 percent.

Copper and zinc futures surged by the daily limit in Shanghai on speculation index funds will buy more industrial metals this month to reflect annual re-weightings in their benchmarks.

ADRs of Total SA, Europe’s biggest oil refiner, added 0.9 percent. Crude oil rose for a third day in New York after Israeli troops entered the Gaza Strip, escalating the 10-day-old conflict and threatening stability in the Middle East, the largest oil- producing region.

The contract for February delivery increased as much as 5.1 percent to $48.68 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

 

Source : http://www.bloomberg.com/

Hottest Nokia topics for 2009

So, what's going to be hot this year? Well, we're no astrologers, but to be fair, it doesn't take a genius to work out what will be tripping off the tongues of folks around Nokia, and the wider Nokia community, this year. We've been scratching our heads, and come up with our little list. Feel free to add yours at the end. Full rundown, after the jump.

Before we kick off, can we just qualify that we're not commenting on, or referencing, future unannounced products or services here. It's simply a list of what we think will be popular topics for the year that is 2009, along with a little reasoning as to why.

Product: N97
There's no need to explain this one, to be fair. The world was wowed at the launch last month, we've been impressed every since. The product folks say we can expect to see it fully in the flesh sometime in 2009. We can't wait.

Product: 5800 XpressMusic going global
Right now only available in a few countries, the 5800 XpressMusic is already proving to be a huge success. And, with wider availability on offer through 2009, we're excited at the prospects for Nokia's first touchscreen.

Concept: Phones without chargers
There's no telling where this one is going to go right now, but the environmental folks at Nokia have high ambitions around the concept of selling phones without chargers. Why? Well selling phones without chargers means phones can ship in smaller boxes (saves energy, packaging and money) and consumers only get what they actually need - this is for those who already own Nokia devices. A definite talking point.

Service: Maps
Already evolving at a pace even we didn't expect to see, Maps, navigation and GPS will all continue to be hot topics in 2009. Why? Well, the proliferation of GPS-enabled devices will be a start. The evolution of the Maps app will keep it on people's lips along with the range of cool new GPS-enabled apps. Bring it on.

Service: Ovi
What's in store for Ovi this year? Lots, if 2008 is anything to go by. Take a look at what we have in Ovi right now against what it was 12 months ago. Comparable? Of course not. So what's it going to be like 12 months from now? We don't have a clue, other than it's going to be nothing like it is today - simply put, even better.

Thought: Peak Phone
Charlie asked this one at the back end of last year. Have we hit Peak Phone yet? Did we hit it last year? It'll be a long time before we find out for sure, meanwhile it'll make one hell of a geek dinner table topic, from now right through to December, for sure.

Global: Financial crisis
The second half of 2008 was consumed by little else than the words credit, crunch and various negative adjectives. The immediate future doesn't sound any more fantastic with caution paving the way through to what could well be a brave new world. What's it to be like? Time will tell, meanwhile expect to spend plenty of time having fun guessing.

Service: Music
Comes with Music attracted plenty of coverage during 2008. As we move across 2009 it's sure to be doing the same, as the service is predicted to roll out in more countries. It isn't just about CwM though, the Nokia Music Store too should give us plenty of topic-fodder for this year, along with the myriad music devices we're bound to see through 2009.

Service: Mobile Email
The ambition for Mail on Ovi is simple - connect the people to the Internet who aren't yet connected. Through their phones. The concept makes sense to us, and as the service rolls out through the year we'll be getting a clearer picture of how it's being recieved. As big as Hotmail, Gmail and all the rest? Ask us this time next year. The predictions right now are pretty clear - 400 million email enabled handsets by 2010.

Thought: Sustainability
This crosses every part of our lives though seems to have evolved out of environmental issues and is now rearing it's head across all parts of our lives and business. That's a good thing. It's at the centre of what Nokia is all about, with new questions about Sustainability being used to improve life and business across the planet. That, we think is a good thing, and will, we reckon, continue to be one of the hottest talking points of 2009.

Now, how about yours. What's on your agenda for the next 12 months?

 

Source : http://conversations.nokia.com/

7 Eleven rolls out Nokia 1680 mobile phone

7 Eleven unveils their very simple and new Nokia 1680 mobile phone on their network. The phone features all the elementary features of a mobile phone like SMS, MMS, Email and Instant Messaging etc.

Nokia 1680 empowers 20 minutes of talk time and provides up to 1000 entries in the phone book. The device sports a VGA camera with a color display of 640×480 pixels that makes it stand out proudly amongst the pre paid mobile phone range. The integrated FM enables the user to tune in to music wherever they are on a mobile basis.

Nokia 1680 has been around the mobile phone markets in shades of Black, Slate Gray, Wine Red, Deep Plum color and currently Canadians get to own it at a price of $89 via 7 Eleven.

Source : http://www.mobiletor.com/

Nokia pledges profits push over sales in crunch times

Nokia will focus on profit development amid a falling mobile phone market in which many competitors are cutting prices, chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told the Financial Times.

Kallasvuo was quoted as saying in an interview: "We will continue to combine market share and margins in the right way in order to maximise the bottom line." This is in stark contrast to some of its smaller rivals, like LG Electronics, who have said they will do anything to reach their sales targets.

Nokia lost some market share in the second half of last year as it shied away from some fierce price battles.

The mobile phone market is expected to see its weakest year in 2009, with analysts forecasting on average a 6.6 per cent fall in sales volumes.

Nokia expects to weather the fall better than some rivals.

Kallasvuo told the Financial Times: "When times are tougher, people who have stronger positions fare relatively better than the competition . . . So, overall, I believe many of our competitors will have limitations here in terms of their ability to do things."

Nokia has said it aims to increase its mobile phone market share in 2009, helped by consumers' appetite for cheaper models.

"The fact that we are commercial in all price points will give us the possibility, if the trade-down happens, to sell another device, which is not always the case with competitors who have a more limited portfolio," Kallasvuo said.

Nokia has bought a dozen companies - including an $8.1bn acquisition of mapping company Navteq - to jump-start its internet business as growth in the mobile phone market stalls.

Nokia has said it was looking for smaller acquisitions to strengthen its internet services offering, and Kallasvuo told the paper the company does not have "any big pieces missing" in its services portfolio.

Source : http://networks.silicon.com/

Nokia patents four-way folding Communicator

Until now clamshell phones have had just the one hinge, but future generations of folding Nokia handsets could be different - the firm has filed a patent application describing a device with no fewer than four hinges.

Basically the concept sees the phone split into four sections: two LCD screens that fold out to form a single display; and a fold-out QWERTY keypad. The four hinges mean the entire thing opens up to form a Communicator-style device with a large landscape screen and full keyboard for quickly tapping out mails and messages.

Of course, Nokia filing a patent describing this concept isn’t a guarantee that it’ll ever become a reality - tech companies tend to churn these things out simply to deny rivals the chance of ever making something similar. But the idea of a full-on Communicator in a body half the size of the current E90 sounds pretty nifty to us.

(Via Electricpig)