Intel completes McAfee acquisition

US computer chip giant Intel has completed its $7.68 billion acquisition of computer security firm McAfee.

Intel said that with the completion of the deal, McAfee becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel. McAfee will continue to sell security products and services under its own brand.

The Santa Clara, California-based Intel, whose processors power nearly 80 per cent of computers worldwide, announced its plan to purchase McAfee, one of the world's largest anti-virus software companies, in August.

The acquisition received the green light from the Federal Trade Commission in December and from European regulators in January.

"Intel has added security as a third pillar of what people demand from their experiences with personal computers and other connected devices," Intel senior vice president Renee James said in a statement.

"The acquisition of McAfee adds not only world-leading security products and technologies to Intel's computing portfolio, but also brings incredibly talented people focused on delivering products and services that help make connecting to the mobile Internet safer and more secure," James said.

Intel launches high speed Thunderbolt connector

24 February 2011 Last updated at 18:25 GMT 

Future versions of Thunderbolt will use fibre optics

Chip manufacturer Intel has announced it is to roll out a new technology for connecting computers and peripherals.

The system, know as Thunderbolt, promises transfer speeds twice as fast as USB 3.0.

However it won't reach its theoretical maximum because Intel has opted to use copper wires rather than fibre optic cables.

The company said it would gradually move to higher speeds over time.

Apple will become the first manufacturer to use Thunderbolt, on its Macbook Pro computers.

The Cupertino firm is said to have been a major driver of its development, although it remains to be seen how may other manufacturers will adopt the new standard.

Light Peak

Intel has been working on the technology for several years.

It was first announced, under the codename Light Peak in 2009.

At launch, its top speed will be limited to 10 Gigabits per second - twice as fast as USB 3.0, but still well below the theoretical maximum using optical cables.

Intel claims that future versions will be able to reach 100 Gb/sec.

The faster data transfer rates are likely to be welcomed by those consumers who use high-definition video, said Sarah Rottman Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research.

"This isn't an innovation that consumers have been asking for, but it's one they'll appreciate," she said.

"Especially when transferring video, as that's when [USB] starts to feel slow."

The system also promises to reduce the number of cables a user has connecting their computer setup.

It is able to carry multiple signal types at the same time, enabling power, display and peripherals to use a single cable.

However, in the short term, users may need to invest in special adaptors to connect their older devices onto Thunderbolt sockets.

Its arrival on the consumer market also raises questions about the future of other connector standards, such as USB and Firewire.

Thunderbolt's most high profile supporter, Apple, is expected to gradually transition to a single connector, according to Karen Haslam, editor of Macworld UK.

"In the long run there will be no need for Apple to support these multiple formats with individual ports - existing products can run through an adaptor," she said.

Not everyone is convinced that Thunderbolt will become the lone standard.

Ian Chiu, editor of the website Everythingusb.com told BBC News that the cost of components could put off some manufacturers.

"I don't really know how Intel will make Thunderbolt appealing to all the other first-tier PC manufacturers," he said.

"HP, Sony, Dell, Acer, Asus make most of their money from the low-end and medium-end notebooks.

"On the other hand, Apple's Macbook Pro line-up is targeted at the prosumers, professionals and other people who aren't so price conscious," said Mr Chiu. 

Source: BBC News Technology

Intel Goes MeeGo, With or Without Nokia

Intel planned to further entice developers with a MeeGo user experience reference platform and a handful of shipping MeeGo applications. Without Nokia's full support, the message fell a bit flat.

Despite Nokia's insistence that it is still very much behind MeeGo, Intel is going to the mobile platform dance stag. It would be easy to feel sorry for them if it hadn't felt like a mistake from the beginning. "Disappointed" is how one Intel MeeGo product manager expressed the company's view on Nokia's fickleness. Still, the company presses on, announcing and demonstrating a tablet reference platform, among other advancements, at Mobile World Congress. Intel also showcased MeeGo running a variety of applications. The MeeGo tablet user experience will run on two standard hardware devices -- the Exo PC (a Windows slate that MeeGo will run on top of) and Wetab (from 4iitoo in Germany). This is a reference platform, where developers can experiment with MeeGo applications. The user interface is primarily an unlimited scrolling experience, with content represented in panes, infinitely displayed as you scroll either vertically or horizontally. In other words, instead of building a hierarchy of content that you drill down into, everything is spread out. It seems different, but not noticeably better or worse than anything else. 
Intel said that user interface elements can be written primarily in Javascript and QML (part of the QT family of MeeGo development tools); underlying application code is written in C++. All of the developer support and SDK's are availabe as part of Intel's AppUp developer program. There will also be an open submission process for tablet applications.
This is all still early days for mobile development using MeeGo. Most of the shipping applications come from some rare places, like a set-top box called Cubovision, available through Telecom Italia. Intel said it took Cubovision only six months to create the media experience capability. In China, Geely Auto is including a factory-installed in-vehicle entertainment system, running on MeeGo on Intel's Atom processor. There are Netbooks from Fujitsu (shipping in Asia) and Lenovo (shipping in Russia). 
Intel sees MeeGo as far more than the typical handset-and-tablet platform, perhaps more like RIM's QNX. But without a flood of wins, and without a compelling handset or tablet story sometime this year -- a remote possibility at best, it seems -- the company will be hard pressed to attract application developers. If RIM, HP and Microsoft struggle, certainly Intel will, too.
The whole idea behind MeeGo was to unite two of the stronger mobile Linux players (Nokia and Intel), and to help avoid the fragmentation that often plagues Linux in the first place. That hasn't necessarily changed, but if Linux is to succeed as a mobile ecosystem, Intel can't go it alone.
Fritz Nelson is the editorial director for InformationWeek and the Executive Producer of TechWebTV. Fritz writes about startups and established companies alike, but likes to exploit multiple forms of media into his writing. 
Source article: http://www.informationweek.com

AMD launches marketing campaign to capitalize on Intel's Sandy Bridge flaw

By Sean Portnoy

While Intel is still the king of CPUs, chief competitor AMD can’t ignore an opportunity to take advantage of a misstep by its rival. With Intel still smarting from the chipset flaw that is marring the rollout of its new Sandy Bridge processors, AMD announced a new marketing campaign that takes a swipe with its tagline.

The campaign’s title is “Ready. Willing. And Stable,” which doesn’t take a chip engineer to figure out the reference, though the marketing is designed to appeal to enthusiasts who will actually know the recent history of Sandy Bridge’s launch. AMD will run ads on several DIY sites, linking to a page on AMD’s site (partially shown above) that touts the advantages of its Phenom II X6 processors over Intel’s latest. (Whether they’re valid claims will be left for the fanboys to argue over.)

AMD’s announcement follows its Valentine Day’s stunt, which entailed a package sent to tech writers like CNET’s Dan Ackerman that offered condolences (and chocolates) for the recent heartbreak that “Sandy B.” caused. Even though the Sandy Bridge flaw is a fairly minor one that most buyers wouldn’t even notice, any opening Intel could offer AMD would be foolish to pass up.

The big question, though: Are you any more likely to buy an AMD processor or AMD-based system now as a result of the Sandy Bridge debacle? Let us know in the Comments section.

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Source:  www.zdnet.com

Intel lists new Sandy Bridge mobile chips

Intel has updated its price list with new dual-core Sandy Bridge chips--some likely bound for Apple MacBooks and for just about every PC vendor on the planet.

The chipmaker yesterday added i3, mobile i5, and mobile Core i7 dual-core chips to the list of Sandy Bridge processors for sale. Many of the initial Sandy Bridge processors listed--and shipped--back in January were quad-core only.

A low-power i5-2537M (1.4GHz) and standard-power i5-2540M and i5-2520M mobile chips have been added to the price list. They are priced at $250, $266, and $225, respectively, in thousand unit quantities.

A sizable cluster of new dual-core i7 mobile processors includes the i7-2620M (2.7GHz), i7-2649M (2.3GHz) and i7-2657M (1.6GHz). Those are priced at $346, $346 (also) and $317, respectively.

The new i3 processors include the i3-2120 (3.3GHz) and i3-2100 (3.1GHz). They are set at $138 and $117, respectively.

Apple is expected to announce new MacBook Pros soon that will gorge on the fresh smorgasbord of dual-core Sandy Bridge delicacies. Pros--introduced in April last year--have been using last-generation Core i5 and i7 processors.

Launched at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, Sandy Bridge--or "Second Generation Intel Core Processor"--is the first mainstream Intel chip to integrate graphics silicon directly onto the processor. It is also the first chip line based fully on Intel's leading-edge 32-nanometer manufacturing process. These two features allow Intel to offer a power-efficient processor with improved multimedia and gaming capabilities.

Intel has resumed shipments of Sandy Bridge chipsets as it seeks to put a minor issue with the chipset behind it. "There was a slight delay. We have changed some of our ship schedules," Ross Compton, a market manager at Lenovo's ThinkPad laptop group, told CNET today. He said the delay was measured in "weeks."

See the updated Intel price here (PDF). Note that Sandy Bridge processors can be identified by the 2XXX numbering scheme--seen as a suffix to the i3, i5, and i7 identifiers.

Intel has also listed other new desktop processors in addition to the Core i3s cited above.

 

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20034533-64.html#ixzz1EgrEOJGG

Apple to Intro Intel's Light Peak Technology?

By Ben Camm-Jones, macworld.co.uk

 

Apple could be about to announce a new high-speed connection technology, possibly to be included in the new generation of MacBook Pros or the second-generation iPad, it has been claimed.

Intel's Light Peak technology, introduced in 2009, could be the new technology in question, though it is likely to have a different name, CNET reports.

  

Though the source cited in the article gives few details, Intel has previously said that Light Peak technology would appear in devices in the first half of 2011.

Light Peak has been designed as a high-speed replacement for legacy connector technologies, capable of connecting all kinds of peripheral devices to a computer. It is thought that an initial version of Light Peak will use copper wires though future versions will utilise fibre-optic technology.

Intel considers Light Peak to be a complimentary technology to, rather than a rival of, USB. However, it is significantly faster than USB 3.0, theoretically capable of carrying data at 10Gbps.

Apple is expected to make an announcement about the MacBook Pro product line this week, with dwindling stocks reported in the US and Japann. It is thought they could be on sale as early as 1 March, despite manufacturing delays caused by problems with Intel's Sandy Bridge processors. 

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