Why XP owners won't love Windows 7.
By Preston Gralla, Jan 14, 2009
Microsoft is betting that Windows 7 will succeed where Windows Vista failed. But there's one group of people who most likely won't like Windows 7 any more than they do Windows Vista --- Windows XP users. Here's why. One of the biggest complaints that XP users had with Windows Vista was its hardware incompatibilities. Older printers, scanners, network cards, and other peripherals simply didn't work with Vista. Here's the bad news: They won't work in Windows 7, either, because Windows 7 uses the same driver model as Windows Vista. So XP users will be out of luck. XP users also tend not to be fans of Vista's Windows Aero and other interface enhancements that they dismiss as so much frou-frou. Guess what --- there's even more frou-frou in Windows 7, such as a new taskbar and a nice new feature called Aero Peek. Those features won't make XP users happy.
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Wednesday, January 14, 2009
AMD plans dual-core Neo chips later this year
By Agam Shah, January 14, 2009
Advanced Micro Devices said Wednesday that it will release dual-core Neo processors in the second half of this year. The dual-core Neo chips will be part of the Congo platform, which will deliver better performance and integrated graphics capabilities to ultraportable laptops, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. He couldn't provide an exact release date for the Neo chips. The first single-core Neo processor was announced by the company last week at the Consumer Electronics Show. The chip was part of the new Yukon platform, which includes a chip set and ATI graphics controllers. Neo chips are power-efficient processors designed for sub-notebooks that can provide a full PC experience, according to AMD. AMD fits Neo into a new category of PCs it calls "ultrathin" laptops, which falls between the ultraportable and netbook laptop segments. Ultraportables are too expensive, while netbooks, though cheap, provide a limited PC experience, AMD contends. The Neo chip consumes a maximum of 15 watts and AMD plans to develop more chips in the same cost and power profile in the future, said Randy Allen, senior vice president of the computing solutions group at AMD. Users can expect to see ever-increasing performance and improved battery life as AMD develops future chips and power management features.
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Advanced Micro Devices said Wednesday that it will release dual-core Neo processors in the second half of this year. The dual-core Neo chips will be part of the Congo platform, which will deliver better performance and integrated graphics capabilities to ultraportable laptops, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. He couldn't provide an exact release date for the Neo chips. The first single-core Neo processor was announced by the company last week at the Consumer Electronics Show. The chip was part of the new Yukon platform, which includes a chip set and ATI graphics controllers. Neo chips are power-efficient processors designed for sub-notebooks that can provide a full PC experience, according to AMD. AMD fits Neo into a new category of PCs it calls "ultrathin" laptops, which falls between the ultraportable and netbook laptop segments. Ultraportables are too expensive, while netbooks, though cheap, provide a limited PC experience, AMD contends. The Neo chip consumes a maximum of 15 watts and AMD plans to develop more chips in the same cost and power profile in the future, said Randy Allen, senior vice president of the computing solutions group at AMD. Users can expect to see ever-increasing performance and improved battery life as AMD develops future chips and power management features.
Read more here -->Link
Future Intel Atom chip is a yawner--by design
by Brooke Crothers January 14, 2009
That Eee PC Netbook too slow? Well, it probably won't get much faster in 2009, according to reports, proving that Intel is not keen on revving up Atom to compete with itself. Both Digitimes and Engadget are reporting that the Atom N280--an update of the 1.6GHz N270--will appear by the third quarter of this year and run at 1.66GHz. This is a whopping 0.06GHz jump in speed--very underwhelming and very different than the performance fast track that consumers are used to with higher-end Intel Core architecture chips. It highlights a theme that will be repeated often in 2009: As Atom gains in popularity, Intel will have to manage the Atom platform so it doesn't imperil more lucrative processor lines. Another theme that's emerging in 2009 is the Netbook--typically priced below $500--as the computer for the sinking economy, tailor-made for shrinking household budgets. In fact, a recent report from Forrester Research exhorts Netbook vendors to discourage this, saying they should "avoid the temptation" to tap into this sentiment.
Read more here -->Link
That Eee PC Netbook too slow? Well, it probably won't get much faster in 2009, according to reports, proving that Intel is not keen on revving up Atom to compete with itself. Both Digitimes and Engadget are reporting that the Atom N280--an update of the 1.6GHz N270--will appear by the third quarter of this year and run at 1.66GHz. This is a whopping 0.06GHz jump in speed--very underwhelming and very different than the performance fast track that consumers are used to with higher-end Intel Core architecture chips. It highlights a theme that will be repeated often in 2009: As Atom gains in popularity, Intel will have to manage the Atom platform so it doesn't imperil more lucrative processor lines. Another theme that's emerging in 2009 is the Netbook--typically priced below $500--as the computer for the sinking economy, tailor-made for shrinking household budgets. In fact, a recent report from Forrester Research exhorts Netbook vendors to discourage this, saying they should "avoid the temptation" to tap into this sentiment.
Read more here -->Link
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