Intel Tukwila to Feature 30MB of On-die Cache

Intel Tukwila promises twice the performance of current Itanium 9100 CPUs

Intel has announced that its next generation Tukwila processors have two billion transistors on the die. The first Tukwila processors will be in the Itanium family and the bulk of the transistors will be used for on-die memory.

An Intel senior fellow, Justin Rattner, told eWeek that the Itanium Tukwila processor will have 30MB of on-die cache and support up to eight instructional threads.

While Intel has been ramping up its 45nm processors with a retool of some of its fab plants to build new Penryn processors, the Tukwila processor uses the older 65nm process for its design. Intel says it expects the Tukwila processors to hit the market by the end of 2008 and the first processors will run at a 2GHz clock speed.

The new Tukwila processors will also be the first of Intel’s Itanium processors to use the new QuickPath interconnect technology, which is an integrated memory controller. The integrated memory controller has been used by Intel rival AMD on its x86 processors for years.

Rattner tells eWeek that the new Itanium Tukwila processor will offer twice the performance of the current 9100 series processor and the Tukwila will operate inside a 130-watt thermal envelope. The core architecture of the Tukwila processor is said to remain the same as the current generation of processors though Tukwila will offer more features.

Intel’s Tukwila processor will compete in the same market as Sun’s Rock processor which sports 16 processor cores.

info:dailytech

Creative's 32GB Zen PMP Now Priced at $299

Creative gets down and dirty with 32GB Zen pricing

Just a few days ago, Apple bumped the maximum capacity of its popular iPod touch portable media player (PMP) from 16GB to 32GB. The increase in capacity also resulted in a price increase from $399 to $499.

Creative may not have the same name recognition as Apple when it comes to PMPs, but the company is looking to attract customers on a different front: pricing. The company's 32GB Zen already undercut the 16GB iPod touch by $70, but Creative is taken even further steps to lower the price of its player.

Creative now lists the 32GB Zen at a low price of $299 representing a $30 price cut. That puts the 32GB Zen at the same price as an 8GB iPod touch.

On a feature-for-feature basis, however, the Zen would most likely be best compared with the iPod nano. Apple's popular iPod nano is priced at $149 for the 4GB model and $199 for the 8GB model. An additional $100 gets you four times the capacity with the Zen plus the addition of an FM tuner.

While we are unlikely to see any price cuts coming from Apple any time soon, it nice to see that other manufacturers are looking to pass the savings gathered from more streamlined NAND flash production onto the consumer.

Rival SanDisk is also looking to drive NAND flash pricing downwards with new 43nm NAND production and three-bit-per-cell technology.

info:dailytech

MySpace Launches Developer Platform

MySpace developer platform allows the building of custom applications to interact with MySpace pages

This week MySpace announced its developer platform to make it easy for third party developers to build applications that work with MySpace pages. To go along with the new developer platform, the online social site also started a MySpace Developer Platform website where users of the software can build and test applications.

ComputerWorld reports that the Developer Platform site will be open to developers for a month to build and test applications in a live environment before the applications are visible to MySpace members in March.

The heart of the MySpace Developer platform is a set of APIs needed to make applications work with MySpace. The set includes Google OpenSocial with special MySpace extensions to enable JavaScript and HTML to interact with MySpace and Representational State Transfer or REST APIs designed to speed up applications.

MySpace came under fire from a variety of sources over the security of its member information and the illegitimate use of that information by some nefarious users. According to MySpace, the new applications developed with the developer platform will be policed by the same privacy controls now in place for other members.

DailyTech reported earlier this month that MySpace has signed an agreement with 49 states to protect its users. MySpace says that applications created with its new developer kit will never have access to more information that is available on the profile page of a user.

The new MySpace developer’s platform will allow MySpace to compete with Facebook on the customization front. Facebook allows users to make and use customized applications that allow them to interact with other Facebook users.

Some examples of Facebook applications are birthday calendars and applications that allow users to see what they have in common with other users of the same application.

info:dailytech

Activision Forecasts Xbox 360 to Outsell PS3 in 2008

Earlier this week, EA told the media and investors its belief that the Wii would stay on top and that PlayStation 3 would outstrip the Xbox 360 in western market sales throughout 2008.

Although Activision didn’t dispute its competitor’s prediction on the ongoing sales of the Wii, it did put the Xbox 360 ahead of the PlayStation 3 for the year in North America.

Activision revealed during to Q3 earning call that it expects the Wii to sell more than 6 million units, the Xbox 360 to sell 4 to 5 million units, the PS3 somewhere between 3-4 million and the PS2 trailing off at 2 to 3 million.

The games publisher also was pleased to announce record holiday sales, up 80 percent over the previous year with $1.48 billion in sales and $272.2 in profit. Big titles helping to drive Activision’s positive report are Guitar Hero III and Call of Duty 4.

Slated for 2008 will be more games that Activision hopes will bring it another record period. According to Variety, Guitar Hero 4 will hit in the fall, but not before two other spinoffs in spring. The publisher also has the rights to release an adaptation of the upcoming James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.

With Activision the top publisher in the U.S. in 2007, the company’s next target is to unseat EA in Europe. "That's the low-hanging fruit for us," Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said. "We have No. 1 market share in the U.S. but not Europe, and there's no reason we see why ‘Guitar Hero' shouldn't be the No. 1 product in Europe as well."

info:dailytech

Skype Now Available for PSP Slim & Lite

Talk on Skype through the new PlayStation Portable

Making good on a promise made earlier this month, Skype is finally available on the PlayStation Portable through the latest system software update. Users interested in adding Skype and other latest features for the PSP will have to perform a network update to obtain the 3.90 firmware.

The new Skype feature is only available for owners of the slimmer, lighter PSP-2000 model. The original PSP-1000 model is unable to run Skype due to insufficient RAM specifications.

PSP-2000 owners will be able to use all the main features of the Skype software, such as free voice calls between Skype users, calls to phones using SkypeOut and receiving calls with SkypeIn.

Those already with Skype accounts will be able to access their existing contact lists, as well as add new contacts using the PSP’s interface. New Skype users will also be able to sign up for the service directly on the PSP.

The only other change to firmware 3.90 is added support for PlayStation Network titles. Full details and a download link to the update may be found at the official site

info:dailytech

Yahoo Cuts 1,000 Jobs as Profits Fall 23%

Making choice cuts, Yahoo struggles to stay afloat amidst plummeting profits


Yahoo, despite owning the most visited set of properties on the Internet, has been forced to make big changes to deal with losing ground to its hungry competitors like Google. Yesterday, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang confirmed fears with an announcement that profit had significantly dipped from the previous year.

Yahoo experienced profit dips for several quarters, and now has another to add to the list. The fourth quarter saw profit fall to $206 million USD, down from $269 million USD from the previous year, a drop of approximately 23.5%. This comes despite revenue increasing $113 million USD to a total of $1.83 billion USD.

Profit for the year sunk to $660 million USD, from $751 million USD only a year ago. Revenue increased over the year, but could not help the sinking profit margin.

The end result is that Yahoo will lay off approximately 7% of its workforce, trimming 1,000 of its 14,300 jobs.


more info:dailytech

Sony Develops Smaller, Cheaper Blu-ray Disc Laser Unit

New 3mm laser helps pave way for more compact, 9.5mm
In the spirit of continuous improvement, Sony Corporation announced on Thursday a new design of the blue-violet laser unit that measures just 3mm thick. The laser unit is a crucial component of Blu-ray Disc drives and players.
Developed in part with Nichia Corporation, the new blue-violet laser is now small enough for practical integration of Blu-ray Disc playback and record functions into mobile applications, such as laptop computers and in-car entertainment systems. Sony said that its less-than 3mm thick laser unit will enable Blu-ray Disc drives measuring in 9.5mm thickness.
Besides improvement in packaging, the new laser unit also features more stable reading of dual-layer media and new reading capabilities, such as the ability to read organic media.

info:dailytech