Chip maker sets release schedule for quad-core server processors
(Computerworld) — Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said Friday that it will start shipping quad-core versions of its Opteron microprocessor in August and that it expects hardware vendors to follow in September with servers based on the new chips.
According to AMD, the quad-core Opterons will deliver a performance gain of 40% to 70% over its existing dual-core chips, depending on the application. And they will do so without consuming more power, said the company, which will come to market with its quad-core offering nine months after Intel Corp. released versions of its Xeon server chips with four processor cores.
The quad-core product line, code-named Barcelona, gets some of its performance improvements because AMD is using a 65-nanometer manufacturing process to build the new chips vs. 90nm for its dual-core chips. In addition, the quad-core devices are being manufactured on a single die of silicon, which allows for faster and easier memory sharing, AMD said.
The new chips will initially ship in two versions with different energy-usage levels: a standard model that consumes 95 watts of power and a lower-power edition that operates at 65 watts. AMD said the clock speed of the quad-core processors will range up to 2 GHz in the standard devices and 100 MHz to 200 MHz slower in the reduced-power chips.
Additional processors will be released in this year’s fourth quarter with faster clock-speed frequencies that eventually will reach 3 GHz, AMD said. It added that users who are running servers with dual-core Opteron chips will be able to easily move to the quad-core devices because the two processor lines have similar power usage characteristics and were designed to operate within the same “thermal envelope.”
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YouTube visits larger than rivals combined: survey
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - YouTube, which has had to pull copyrighted videos off its site after legal attacks by some big media franchises, has enjoyed a surge in U.S. audience share that leaves it far larger than the next 64 video-sharing sites combined, a survey found.
The U.S. market share of visits to YouTube, which Google Inc. bought for $1.65 billion last November, rose 70 percent from January through May, online audience measurement firm Hitwise Inc. said in the survey published on Wednesday.
By contrast, visits to the next 64 largest sites tracked by Hitwise rose only 8 percent during 2007’s first five months.
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NBC CEO says fiscal discipline behind Dow decision
LONDON (Reuters) - NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker has said the General Electric Co.-owned media group was constrained from matching News Corp.’s $5 billion bid for Dow Jones & Co. Inc. due to the size of the premium.
“When you have shareholders who you have to create value for, you have to be fiscally disciplined. When you are the shareholder that matters, you play a different game,” he was quoted as saying in a Financial Times interview on Friday, referring to Rupert Murdoch’s controlling stake in News Corp.
He added: “I am not going to presume to know what’s in Rupert’s mind in terms of why he’s bid what he’s bid. But you have to remember, this has been a pattern he has always followed,” Zucker said.
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General Electric and Pearson Plc said on June 21 they would not pursue a joint offer for Dow Jones, removing a potential challenge to the bid by News Corp.
GE — which controls NBC Universal, the operator of business news channel CNBC — and Pearson, publisher of the Financial Times, said they had held exploratory talks about combining their financial news outlets with Dow Jones.
Murdoch has bid $5 billion or $60 per share for Dow Jones, a 65 percent premium to the company’s share price before the deal was disclosed in May.
SanDisk and Ritek settle suit, sign license deal
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Flash memory maker SanDisk Corp. on Friday said it settled its patent litigation against Ritek Corp. and signed a royalty-bearing cross-license agreement with the Taiwanese manufacturer.
The companies said the agreement makes Ritek the first Taiwanese manufacturer of flash cards, USB flash drives and storage systems that is licensed by SanDisk.
SanDisk said the license and royalty terms of the agreement and settlement are confidential.
TiVo says Comcast accepts software for DVRs
NEW YORK (Reuters) TiVo Inc. , a maker of digital video recording technology, said on Thursday that the largest U.S. cable operator Comcast Corp. had accepted its TiVo-branded software for deployment on Comcast’s DVR platforms.
TiVo said Comcast confirmed acceptance of the software on Wednesday. It came just three days before a previously disclosed deadline of June 30.
Qualcomm rejects Broadcom’s $6 per phone offer
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chip designer Broadcom said on Friday that rival Qualcomm Inc. rejected its offer to settle a patent dispute over wireless chip technology with a $6 royalty fee for each mobile phone affected.
The two companies have been locked in lawsuits over wireless chip technology. Qualcomm is seeking a presidential veto on a U.S. government agency’s ban on imports of high-speed wireless phones that use Qualcomm chips due to their infringement of Broadcom patents.
David Rosmann, Broadcom’s vice president of intellectual property litigation, said the company’s offer translated to around 2 percent to 2.5 percent of the price of each handset.
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Early iPhone buyers strain to resell them online
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Many people who lined up to be the first buyers of Apple Inc.’s iPhone made good on promises to try to flip the gadgets online at inflated prices, but a quick buck appeared out of reach for many.
Auction Web site eBay had more than 400 listings for iPhones just two hours after the combination cell phone, Web browser and music and video player went on sale on the U.S. East Coast.
But the vast majority of offers failed to attract even a single bid, and many of those that had were not yet above the list prices.
A handful of offers did draw enthusiastic bidding. One eBay auction had attracted 35 bids and a leading offer of $1,520. Another was up to $960 with 25 bids.
The iPhone is available at Apple and AT&T stores in two models costing $500 and $600 depending on whether it has 4 or 8 gigabytes of memory. It requires a service contract from AT&T Inc. that runs at least $1,400 over two years.
Online classifieds site Craigslist had 404 iPhone listings for New York City, with most seeking about $1,000 and one optimist wanting $10,000 from “collectors only”.
Disk drive consolidation as Western buys Komag
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Western Digital Corp. has agreed to buy component maker Komag Inc., in the latest move to consolidate the disk drive industry, for about $1 billion in cash, the companies said on Thursday.
The proposed merger comes amid a sharp fall in prices in the highly commoditized computer disk-drive industry, once one of the bedrock manufacturing sectors in Silicon Valley.
Western Digital would pay $32.25 a share for all of the outstanding shares of Komag, a supplier of the thin-film media that finished products maker Western uses to make disk drives.
Komag stock rose 7.6 percent in after-hours trade to $31.83, while Western Digital dipped 2 percent in extended trade to $19.15.
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The Apple iPhone: Fast iFacts
—The iPhone costs $499 (with 4 gigabytes of flash memory) and $599 (8 gigabytes). A two-year voice and data service contract from AT&T Wireless is required. Phones will be available only at Apple Stores, AT&T-owned and -operated retail stores and the Apple Web site beginning at 6 p.m. local times in the United States only. Sorry, Canada.
—The iPhone runs on the GSM cellular standard, meaning it will never be compatible with Verizon Wireless’s or Sprint Nextel’s networks, which use a different standard. It’s possible it could run on T-Mobile’s network once the 2-year AT&T contract expires.
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iPhone launch draws gadget geeks, hired help
NEW YORK/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Kristian Gundersen flew from Norway to New York to be among the first people to buy Apple’s media-playing iPhone. He described the day as one of the best of his life.
“It’s a dream come true. … It’s Christmas, birthday, New Year’s all rolled into one,” said the 23-year-old graphic designer who lined up for nearly 12 hours to buy the music and video playing phone.
“I’m a Mac addict,” he said, referring to Apple Inc.’s trademark computers. “I got on a 10-hour line for the ‘Lord of the Rings’ (movie), but it is nothing compared to this. This is a historic event.”
Gundersen was among several thousand people who lined up — some for up to five days — outside U.S. Apple stores and outlets of AT&T , the exclusive iPhone carrier for the next two years. Stores opened at 6 p.m. local time in each U.S. time zone.
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