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| 3rd party service to monitor wireless performance |
3/23/2010 |
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Metrico Mobile Experience will provide monthly summary reports of the performance of various cellphones running both in lab tests and in tests conducted on carrier networks. The data should provide good comparisons both of the handsets tested and the networks on which they are tested.
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| Toshiba to build new fab for Flash |
3/23/2010 |
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Toshiba said the company believes the time is right to construct a new fab. Adding production capacity will help Toshiba "respond quickly and decisively to market expansion" and strengthen the company's competitiveness in semiconductors, Toshiba said.
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| Google redirects ".cn" site |
3/22/2010 |
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On Monday afternoon, visitors to Google.cn were being redirected to Google's Chinese-language service based in Hong Kong. Google does not censor those results, but Chinese government filters can still restrict the results that are seen by mainland audiences.
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| Mentor invests into PCB manufacturing EDA |
3/22/2010 |
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The Valor division will continue to develop solutions for the manufacturing market, reinforcing both companies’ commitment to deliver solutions and support to the manufacturing market, as well as powerful integration of design for manufacturing functionality into Mentor and non-Mentor PCB design environments.
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| U.K. Smiths Group acquires US probe contact company |
3/22/2010 |
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"With a major plant in China, IDI strengthens our connector operations and will allow us to leverage our existing international sales resources, particularly in Europe which accounts for a quarter of the global connectors market."
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| Quantum film revolutionize image senser |
3/22/2010 |
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Quantum films can image scenes with more pixel resolution, according to their inventors, InVisage Inc., offering four-times better sensitivity for ultra-high resolution sensors that are cheaper to manufacture.
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| OEM's rushing for DRAM contract |
3/19/2010 |
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Each of the PC vendors is seeking a supply of DDR2 and DDR3 totalling 20-30 million chips, and their suppliers will see their capacities fully loaded through the end of June.
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| Oregon State University to work on next air-traffic control system |
3/19/2010 |
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The stakes are high—air traffic control costs the U.S. over $40 billion per year at 5,000 public airports managing 40,000 flights a day. Delays at airports now account for $19 billion in unnecessary operational costs and $12 billion in lost time for passengers. The proposed new system would reportedly reduce those costs by increasing the efficiency with which air traffic controllers avoid delays by 20 percent.
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| Sprint to unveil 4G phone |
3/19/2010 |
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"It is widely touted that Sprint Nextel's first WiMax (4G) phone will be supplied by HTC. We can also surmise that the 4G WiMax chip will be supplied by Beceem, a MIPS licensee and royalty payer."
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| Google and Intel working on IPTV |
3/19/2010 |
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The New York Times reported Wednesday (March 17) that Google, Intel and Sony are working on software to bring Web content in an easy to use fashion to the TV, building on Google's Android and Chrome software. Logitech is building remote controls for the effort,
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| Shakeout in the Chip-Packaging/Test business |
3/18/2010 |
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So who's next in the shakeout? ChipMos is next, because of a string of losses at the company and a shaky balance sheet. To be blunt, ChipMos has a lousy balance sheet.
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| MicroUnity brought case against handset manufacturers |
3/18/2010 |
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Former processor startup MicroUnity Systems Engineering (Santa Clara, Calif.) filed suit Tuesday (March 16) alleging 22 of the world's top cellphone companies including chip, system and service providers infringe 15 of its patents.
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| Capacitorless DRAM scalable beyond 30nm |
3/18/2010 |
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Using 3D transistors similar to FinFETs, the two companies have demonstrated behavior similar to the floating-body effect in SoI planar transistors. IS claims the effect is strong enough and has the right characteristics to implement a capacitorless, one-transistor DRAM that can meet DDR3 voltage, power, and performance specs at and beyond the 50nm half-pitch.
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| Prices help smartphone sales in Asia |
3/18/2010 |
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The growth will be driven by strong demand in China and India and this will present a challenge to the traditional smartphone vendors and an opportunity for competition as well as opening up a large grey market. Smartphone shipments to Asia will be feature an average selling price of under $120 before subsidies or taxes.
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| Nanya and Inotera to expand with hiring |
3/17/2010 |
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Inotera is shifting from 70nm-class trench directly to 50nm stack, and expects to convert all of its chip production (130,000 wafers a month) to the more advanced process in the fourth quarter.
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| Intel offers SSD option to netbooks |
3/17/2010 |
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The SSD is loaded with the operating system and favorite applications to take advantage of the speedy performance, which Intel claims is nearly 4x faster than a 7200RPM HDD.
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| Subscribers call for iPhone to broaden support |
3/17/2010 |
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"It befuddles my imagination to figure out why Apple refuses to do things that would further please customers," "why [Apple] takes such an exclusionist attitude about relationships with the outside world."
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| IC Insights projects 27% jump in semi market |
3/16/2010 |
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Therefore, with only a moderate seasonal increase forecast for the IC market in the second half of this year, IC Insights believes its 27% growth forecast for 2010 still can be considered conservative.
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| Semi companies raising prices due to shortage |
3/16/2010 |
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''In short, near-term business conditions are robust, end demand appears strong, particularly in Asia where signs of a broader economic recovery are apparent, and visibility is robust through 2Q,'' according to a report from FBR.
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| Researchers upgrades lithium ion battery 5X capacity |
3/16/2010 |
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Nanocomposites aim to boost the capacity of lithium ion batteries by five-times by hanging nanometer-sized silicon particles on trees of carbon black that self-assemble into porous micron-sized spheres, which increase an electrode's surface area with interconnected internal channels.
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| Google defiance on China "Search" laws? |
3/16/2010 |
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A key issue is whether Beijing, angry and embarrassed by Google's public defiance, would allow the company to continue running other operations, including advertising and a fledgling mobile phone businesses in China if Google.cn closes.
China promotes Internet use for business and education but bars access to sites run by human rights and political activists and some news outlets.
Officials, who defend China's controls by pointing to countries that bar content such as child pornography, are stung that Google has drawn attention to how much more pervasive Chinese limits are.
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| AMD to produce netbook class processor in 2011 |
3/15/2010 |
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On the face of it this make sense. Bobcat was supposed to have power efficiency in mind and AMD has claimed that it will burn the same amount of juice as an Intel Atom ie 10W-15W.
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| Google Chrome, too expensive to penetrate |
3/15/2010 |
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Google's requirements for systems using Chrome include relatively high performance graphics, accelerometers and other sensors. "PC OEMs say the hardware requirements—still under NDA--will make the systems actually more expensive than a Windows device, yet they don't have anywhere near the applications support
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